Build It Better Yourself

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Some of the best homestead tools and devices around aren't for sale in any store. They're the ones conceived and tested on farms-and in back yards-around the world. Many are homemade varieties of commercially available implements . . . others are personal answers to particular how-to-do-it problems. Whatever, they all have one thing in common: A large part of the pleasure that comes from their use derives from the knowledge that they're homemade.

And so it is with the following projects, selected from a helpful new book put out by the folks at Rodale Press. In MOTHER NO. 46 (pages 60-61), we showed you four items from this book that were particularly well suited for summertime use. This time, we've selected some articles that will prove handy in early fall. And Build It Better Yourself offers construction plans for over 200 more . . . a great number of which could surely benefit you!

FEED BIN

If you have a few chickens, rabbits, goats, or other animals, you know about the hassle of storing sacks of feed. You don't want to visit the grain crib daily, but you don't want feed spilling in a corner of the barn or shed either. This feed bin is designed to store those sacks of grain. It will give longest service if you keep it inside a barn or otherwise protect it from the weather. It is not intended for outside storage.

The bin was made from standard tongueand-groove siding. The vagaries of milling the tongues and grooves on the boards and the tightness with which individual carpenters will lay them up makes it difficult to provide exact numbers and widths of boards needed. Inevitably, you will have to rip several, but don't start until you're sure, by measurement, of the widths to which you must rip them.

CONSTRUCTION

[1] Start by cutting 2 X 2 stock: two pieces 25 inches long, two pieces 30 inches long, and three pieces 45 inches long. Cut two 33-inch lengths of 2 X 4. These are the nailers, or frame, on the inside of the box.

[2] Use tongue-and-groove white pine barn siding or comparable material (plywood, for example) for the sides, front, back, top, and bottom of the bin, using 6d nails to fasten the boards to the frame pieces. Assemble the sides first. Cut seven 30-inch lengths of the siding and nail them together, using a 33-inch 2 X 4 and a 30-inch 2 X 2 as nailers, as shown. Rip the groove from the board that will be the bottom of the side. Lay up the boards, nailing them to the frame. One of the 25inch lengths of 2 X 2 is nailed inside the bottom edge of the side. Before nailing the top board or two to the frame, set them in place and mark them for the angle that must be ripped. After cutting the boards, nail them in place. Construct the second side in the same fashion.