My first bird house

[Rick Huelsbeck]

For my girlfriends fathers family, picture quality could be better. All maple, top stained with minwax red, and finished with Shellac.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Great looking birdhouse Rick. They are going to love and cherish it.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Nice work Rick! I really like the color variation! I am sure the gift will be cherished!

[Jon Lanier]

Hey, I like that one. Pretty red!

[Jim Kountz]

Nice looking first birdhouse Rick, Ive yet to try one of these mainly because I dont have any hollowing tools. What did you use? I see some guys here modify an allen wrench and seem to have success with that.

[Dave Halter]

Jim,
Hollowing tools are not needed to make the birdhouse ornaments. You can use forstner bits and jam chucks to make the house and and roof. Below is a link to a good tutorial:

www.detroitareawoodturners.org/Bird%20House.pdf (http://www.detroitareawoodturners.org/Bird%20House.pdf)

Dave

[Dean Thomas]

Dave's right (Hi Dave!!). You really do not have to have hollowing tools, but without them you are pretty much limited to either straight walls or you can shape your outside wall without shaping the inside. Your door will show the thickness of your wall and any variation.

Yes, you can use long Allen wrenches, bent and sharpened. Bend 'em so that the cutting point is as close as you can get to in line with the center line of the handled tool. That will keep it from twisting in your hand. Or you can straighten it or whack it off all together, round the tip and use it straight in. You're not doing a deep hollowing, right?

I personally like to see the little house with some shape and I like the detail of seeing the wall thickness even. Not hard, not tool intensive, unless you just HAVE to have more tools.

And that is why I bought a 1/4 x 1/4 scraper with a round nose. I really don't mind making my own tools, but I prefer the quality of the steel that's available commercially to that which I have available to me. Their tempering and hardening procedures are vastly superior to mine.

Dick Sing's book on making bird house ornaments is a great read. Lots of fun and it will challenge you to look for lots of shapes and schemes.

[Rick Huelsbeck]

I used forstner bits to hollow it out.