The Home Depot Bird Feeder Kit - Carpentry for beginners.
Written: Jan 18 '03 (Updated Jan 18 '03)
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Pros: Kids can build it themselves.
Cons: Younger kids will need an adults assistance.
The Bottom Line: This is a great kit that teaches children to take pieces of wood and turn into something useful.
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| tiffer0220's Full Review: The Home Depot Bird Feeder Kit |
With my son being a Wolf Scout, they recently were at the level in their scout book where they would need to build something using wood, hammer and nails, and other tools. Most of us were clueless about what they should build and how we'd be able to get the proper wood, diagrams, and blue prints for a project for them. This is where Home Depot came in handy with their Home Depot Bird Feeder Kit. There were other kits to choose from, like a squirrel feeder kit, a bird house, or a candy machine, but my son chose to make the bird feeder kit.
The bird feeder kit comes with 4 pieces of pre-cut wood, a corkboard backing for the feeder, a corkboard circle to cover the hole up where the bird food gets placed into the feeder, a clear plastic window, 5 nails, 2 screws and a screw eye.
The directions are supposed to be simple enough for 8 year olds to follow, since it is recommended for kids ages 8 and up. However, the directions are not that simple and the pictures it shows can be deceiving if you try to follow them. Your best bet is to look at the directions and then look at the picture of the completed product on the front of the box and decide what goes where.
The bottom piece of wood has 2 holes to get you started. This is where you are supposed to screw the side pieces into the bottom piece. Most of the boys needed an adult to start the screw and then needed an adult to tighten the screw so that the pieces actually came together. Each side piece only takes 1 screw. After the sides are intact, the next step is to put the clear plastic window into the pre cut slots of the side pieces. If you would like bird food to actually come out the bird feeder, then it is important that the window does not touch the bottom piece. There are 2 small cork squares that need to be glued into the bottom of the slots before the window can be placed. Many of the boys managed to skip over this step which resulted in many parents trying to glue the pieces after the feeder was completed.
After those steps are completed, the back piece will just slide into the back since the side pieces will have another slot for the back to slide into. Then it's time to nail the roof onto the feeder. Again, most of the boys needed adults to start the nails, but most of them were able to hammer the nails and complete the process themselves.
The last 2 steps consist of attaching the screw eye to the top of the roof so that it can hang, and attaching the cover to where you fill the bird food from. The hardest part of the project was attaching the screw eye. I had problems with that and ended up just hammering the stubborn thing into the roof.
Once the Home Depot Bird Feeder Kit is complete, it can be painted or stained or just left as is. The kit comes with ideas on how to paint it and how to protect the feeder.
Overall, the boys were all able to complete their kits within 45 minutes. Even ones that got screwed up still turned out great for an 8 year old.
I would highly recommend the Home Depot Bird Feeder Kit for any boys or girls who like to build things themselves. This is also a great project to do on rainy days or in Scouts.
What you will need
The box will tell you that you need a hammer and a philips head screw driver. The box does not tell you that will need glue. Remember the glue! We ended up using Elmers Glue since that was the only glue someone could find in about a minutes notice. The Elmers Glue worked fine.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 7.00
Type of Toy: Arts and Crafts
Age Range of Child: 6 to 8 Years
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tiffer0220
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Member: Tiffany
Location: Florida
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About Me:
And baby makes...us CRAZY! I am trying to get motivated to write again!
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