One of the first things my wife and I did when we bought this house a while back was
order some baby chicks. So one of the first projects that I took on in this house was
to build a chicken coop. But now that my wife and I are selling the house we have to get
rid of that chicken coop. I have already found a new home for most of the chickens but our
children were having a hard time parting with a couple of the birds. So among the tears
and reassurances that we were trying to do as I was shuttling birds off to their new
home my wife turned to me and says, can't you build something? To which I then turned
to her and said, yeah, I build something all the time. To which see turned to me and said.
So the issue was to build a chicken coop for two chickens. I needed to be able to pick
the coop up with the two chickens in it and move it easily. It needs to double as a transport
carrier for when we move. So it has to be solid with a large access so it can be cleaned
easily and often. There are a lot of ways you can start a project
like this. I decided to begin by building the front and back panels. The back panel
was just some 1x3's edge glued together. All the glue ups I did for this project went
through this same process so for the sake of time I'm not going to show me gluing
all the different panels and doors and bore you to death for half an hour. You could use
plywood and eliminate the glue up process altogether. The choice is yours. I've never
had very good success with using plywood for outdoor projects. So this is the material
I choose to work with. Now its back to the miter saw to cut the pieces
for the front panel. The last project video I did, the DIY dowel jig, was inspired right
about...now. I was experimenting with pocket holes to see if they would hold in this low
quality furring strip material I was using. An 8 ft furring strip board runs about $1.60
to $1.90. Much more cost effective than the $5 or $6 for a pine board but I also find
it doesn't hold screws very well either. I went ahead and finished the front panel
with pocket holes but I didn't like how it turned out so I decided to do something
different for the rest of it. So I went to the miter saw to cut the pieces
for the sides and then enter the dowel jig. I was able to drill all 36 dowel holes in
the two side panels in less than 5 minutes and they all lined up. This thing is a real
time saver. I marked all the sides and I just had to remember that if I flipped one piece
onto the jig to drill the holes, I had to flip the adjoining side as well. It was about
this point that I figured out all I had to do was flip a board end for end to drill the
opposite end dowel holes. For the middle dowel holes, mark where the
middle board will be, remove the top portion of the jig, line the mark on the board with
the corresponding mark on the jig. Easy peasy. Assembling the two sides was quick and clean.
I need four corner pieces. The corner pieces are one and a half by one and a half inches.
I could have cut a 2x4 in half but I didn't have any scrap 2x4 pieces left in my shop.
I did have this 2x6 left over from the vertical herb garden project so I got 3 of the 4 corners
out of that. Then a scrap 1x3 supplied the fourth corner. To cut the dados I used the
table saw. The router probably would have been quicker but I didn't want to dig it
out and set it up. I have a walk thru of this process in the drill press drum sanding station
video. I'll put a link to that in the description. After the dados are cut in the corners, I'll
attach them to the front and back panels first. Then the side panels. Clamps keep the joint
nice and tight while I tack em in place. Now the front panel.
I wasn't worried about it being square at this point. I'll square it when I attach
the floor. Speaking of the floor, I edge glued some 1x4's for that. A glue up this wide
is hard to do without referencing each board off of the next. I usually use biscuits to
do that however, since I just made this dowel jig, I decided to use it. Worked out beautifully.