No Glowforge was harmed or used in the making of this bee hotel.
I’ve been meaning to make one of these for a while. Had a visit with my mom for the first time in 3 months today, so decided on Friday I would make one for her (and now will make one for us next weekend).
Everything is scrap crap found in my shed or yard.
Tools used: 10" miter saw, pneumatic finish nailer (i could have used a hammer, but i hadn’t turned on the compressor in a while, and, you know… NAIL GUN!), a friend’s drill press, metal clippers, and a pair of scissors, and a staple gun.
materials: a piece of old, unfinished stair tread (we think it might be some kind of cedar?), a really old board that was a shelf on a cinder block shelving unit in the metal shed that was behind our house when we bought it 20 years ago, a downed log i found in the yard that wasn’t rotten (maybe plum tree?). a big piece of bamboo that was in the neighbor’s yard waste, a bunch of small bamboo pieces from an old, broken, and unused bamboo fence screen, some wire screening that was rolled up behind the shed years ago, and some string.
take all that, mix and match some tools and some materials, figure out how to take an 8" deep board and cut it down to be 5" x 10" pieces with a 10" miter saw, feel sad that you really only needed to put in about 16 finish nails, but you weren’t mentally done with the power tool, and you end up with one happy Mom, whose entire yard is pretty much a pollinator garden (we ate outside today and there were bumble bees flying across our table throughout the meal and afterward, which meant i had to keep a good handle on Dany who things all flying bugs are targets and she’s an anti-aircraft missile). so she’s thrilled and will be putting this up somewhere this week.
happy with how this turned out. looking forward to taking the other shelf from that old shed (how it had two matching shelves of a nice 3/4" hardwood i don’t understand) and building one for our yard next weekend.