Hi from from Mike57 in West Wiltshire

[Mike57]

Retired mechanical engineer needing another hobby to get over life. No experience or skills in woodworking and finding wood tolerances hard to adjust to (or just maybe it's my lack of skill stopping things fitting neatly).
I promised my four children and their ten children bird nest boxes or bird tables for Christmas as a motivator to get me going on my new hobby.
The research and design phase was easy coffeebut the routing has created more scrap than I expected despite a new router and too many YouTube videos.
So I'm here to read and learn.
And it seems a good choice. Thank you for the real world thoughts about so much that reading the daily email of new topics holds me up from starting for at least an hour each day.
Best wishes to you all
Mike

I promise a picture ot an open fronted nest box for a Robin when it's painted.

 

[Sandyn]

Welcome to the forum Mike. That's a great idea to motivate yourself, I'm sure you will be able to complete your task in time, but Amazon have a great selection if you get stuck!! The main thing is to enjoy your new hobby.

 

[MARK.B.]

Hi and Welcome, you could involve the younger ones as well making bird boxes etc by doing small flat packs for them to assemble. Sure the end result may not be quite perfect but they and you can have a lot of fun along the way.

 

[Mike57]

Thank you @markblue777 and @Sandyn for the welcome and the ideas. I think the flat pack is a great idea, especially if I paint each box a different colour, but afterwards each family can juggle their different box sets to be boringly monocolour or kaleidoscopic.
And I save the assembly time!
As you say they may not be quite perfect, but then, neither are mine likely to be.

 

[Sachakins]

Hi and welcome to the mad house,

 

[Ollie78]

Welcome, I am also in Wiltshire. Enjoy your new (expensive) hobby.

Ollie

 

[Tanglefoot20]

Hi and welcome....

Ex engineer here and now dabbling with woody bits....just remember.. erasure twice cut once.......hopefully not parts of the human body tho...

Steve from yate

 

[Fitzroy]

Welcome. Plenty of engineers on here fighting with woodworking accuracy.

 

[martin.pearson]

Welcome to the forum, quite new here myself but already learning.
I spent 20 years in the RN as a Mechanical engineer, during that time I machined a lot of different metals on various types of machines. Frustrated me no end when I first started working with wood because I couldn't achieve the same level of accuracy lol
Flat pack boxes sound like a good idea but if you are going to paint then then do a bit of research first as certain paints & stains can't be used on nest boxes from what I have read.

 

[stuart little]

Retired mechanical engineer needing another hobby to get over life. No experience or skills in woodworking and finding wood tolerances hard to adjust to (or just maybe it's my lack of skill stopping things fitting neatly).
I promised my four children and their ten children bird nest boxes or bird tables for Christmas as a motivator to get me going on my new hobby.
The research and design phase was easy coffeebut the routing has created more scrap than I expected despite a new router and too many YouTube videos.
So I'm here to read and learn.
And it seems a good choice. Thank you for the real world thoughts about so much that reading the daily email of new topics holds me up from starting for at least an hour each day.
Best wishes to you all
Mike

I promise a picture ot an open fronted nest box for a Robin when it's painted.

Here's one I made earlier.

 

[baldkev]

Hello, welcome to the forum

just remember.. erasure twice cut once......

So do you listen to 2 erasure tracks before each cut? Like blue savannah and chains of love before a crosscut? dont mind me, i can't help it