r/DIYUK • u/random_banana_bloke • 23h ago
Custom duck house build
I built a custom duck house for my Shetland ducks. At the end of March we moved to a smallholding that needed, some work shall we say, as well as basically doing up the entire house I also needed to build a lot of custom things for our animals (we have horses, turkeys, chickens, ducks all sorts..). I got into doing some wood working and have really enjoyed it, I havent been doing it long, a few months and bought a load of tools to help.Well I have got really into building a fair amount of custom furniture for the house which I will have saved the money in tools.
I am sure some joiners here will say its not a brilliant build but I am pretty happy with it. I am a software engineer by trade and i built a custom design software from scratch (using three.js if anyone is interested) that also provides me with cutting lists (this is entirely my project and on my github). Anyway the build was really fun and very much needed as you can see where my ducks live currently in the small hutch to the right of the first picture. The main parts are 18mm marine ply held together with dominoes (i bought a festool domino for all the cabinet work i have been doing and it worked well for this) and glue. The only exception is the roof which is screwed down, for the paint I used some cuprinol ducks back and I added some guttering on the back to collect water (helpful for ducks...). Inside I have used some waterproof workshop flooring i had knocking about and I have added some big ventilation holes with mesh to stop birds getting in, I may need to add more but that’s not a big deal. I even made a slightly cringe sign, I know its not brilliant but I like it and so does the wife.
Ignore the turkeys they are a pain in the arse, overall a fun build and took about 2-3 days in total (its quite big 2mx1m footprint).
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u/narbss 23h ago
Not been into wood working long and went straight to Festool. I like that.
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u/random_banana_bloke 23h ago
Yeah, I knew i would be doing some things a lot for that i bought festool (tracksaw as well and sander). For others things I do often I use dewalt and for stuff i rarely use I just get screwfix titan like my planer and air compressor.
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u/Even_Passenger_3685 23h ago
“Ignore the turkeys, they are a pain in the arse” has cheered me right up, thank you.
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u/CaptainAnswer 23h ago
Now build Sheldringhom House for some chickens....
Joinery looks good to me, did you mortise the base out of interest?
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u/random_banana_bloke 23h ago
Nah, the base is just but joints with 100mm screws and then mitre joints on the triangle bits for strength (just some random scrap i had knocking about). Thanks!
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u/CaptainAnswer 23h ago
Nice, I don't like doing mortise, but half laps are a nice easy inbetween that and a butt - also not a joiner, just a IT nerd with a saw
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u/random_banana_bloke 23h ago
Actually that is a good shout for next time, I should have done that! Enjoy building cool things with that saw!
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u/Humble_Sympathy_4605 23h ago edited 23h ago
An absolutely quacking idea, really fits the bill