Original mailboxes with their own hands

Mail boxes serve for receiving letters, newspapers and magazines. In the entrances of apartment buildings, each time passing by, one can not help recognizing their unattractive monotony. Mailboxes can be made by anyone with their own hands. Surprise your neighbors with your creativity!

Mailbox: bright accent at home

You can select a standard mailbox of the total mass, making it noticeable, recognizable, different originality.

The easiest way is to repaint it in a different color, different from the other boxes. You can go further and put on any drawing or pattern, it depends on the artistic abilities. On the box must be the apartment number. Diagonally applied figures will also give the box some originality.

The impossibility of making changes in the construction of the housing box somewhat limits the embodiment of creative and designer fantasies. It is possible to make a mail box with your own hands from improvised materials.

Variety of styles and shapes

Another thing - the installation of a mailbox in a country house or in the country. You can make it yourself, and it will look exactly the way you want it. Making a box with your own hands, you can stick to a certain style. There are several basic styles:

1. Standard. Ordinary box of rectangular shape, can be metal or wooden. Attached to the wall or fence.
2. American. An elongated box, on top of a semicircular shape. It is installed on the support. The decoration can serve as a voluminous figure. A distinctive feature is the signal flag, informing about the presence of correspondence in the box.
3. English. Emphasizes its solidity. It is a metal box or a brick cabinet built into a wall with an impressive niche for mail, installed near the entrance to the house.
4. Original. Supposes the use as a mail box for housings from old household appliances (microwave oven, system unit).

Requirements

It's easy to make a mailbox with your own hands. The photos below will help you decide on the design of the product.

Whatever the style of the mailbox, it must meet certain requirements: durability, convenience and protection from falling rain drops and snow on correspondence.

Standard mail box made of wood

The box requires the following set:

• Sheet of plywood not less than 5 mm thick;
• Wooden bars 15 × 15 mm;
• Furniture loops;
• Small tin plate;
• A hacksaw on wood or a jigsaw;
• a hammer;
• Fastening material (screws, nails).

The size of the mailbox should be such that it can easily accommodate a standard sheet of A4 paper. Let's try right now to make mailboxes with our own hands.

Getting Started

From the plywood, two pieces with dimensions of 350 × 250 mm and 350 × 70 mm are sawed out. This will be the front and back walls and sides. For the bottom part a blank with the size of 250 × 70 mm is sawed. It is from this that a wooden mailbox begins to be created. Anyone can make it with his hands.

At the top of the box there should be a gap of about 20 mm for correspondence. Therefore, the billet is made in the size of 250 × 50 mm, in this case the gap will be placed near the edge of the top of the box. You can also cut two blanks with a size of 250 × 25 mm, then the slot for correspondence will be located in the middle. The lower bar should be 250 × 70 mm in size.

Cut into four bars of length 350 mm and 220 mm. They will be located in the corners of the box and give the structural rigidity.

For durability, all parts must be treated with solutions before assembly, which repels insects and prevents decay.

Assembling the box

Using sandpaper, all billets are removed from the burrs and smooth out small irregularities. Bars gather in a rectangle. The front wall (350 × 250 mm) is laid on them. The sides of the bars are combined with the ends of the plywood billet, and they are fixed with nails or screws. The use of glue together with nails will strengthen the strength of the joint and increase the tightness. The glue is applied to the side of the bar and to the edge of the plywood billet. Then they are connected and fixed with nails.

In the same way, the back wall joins with the bars. A very important point - do not forget about attaching the drawer to the fence or the wall of the house. For this, two eyes are screwed to the top edge of the back wall.

The front and rear walls are placed on the end edges and alternately fastened to the side slats (350 × 70 mm). The top of the box consists of two slats (250 × 25 mm). Fasten with nails and glue, so that there is a gap of about 20 mm between them.

The bottom of the box is folded so that there is an opportunity to take out the correspondence. For this, two furniture loops are screwed to the long edge of the strap, a small corner loop for the post lock is attached to the opposite side of the strap. Then the furniture loops are connected to the rear wall, the bottom is closed, and at the level of the lock loop, the second eye is attached to the front wall.

In order to prevent rain and snow from falling in the mailbox slot, a protective plate is cut from the tinplate and a protective plate is installed. It should be with rounded edges, a bit larger than the top of the box. The plate is made folding, for this purpose it is fixed to the back wall on small furniture loops.

There is a mailbox option with an opening front wall. In this case, the box is assembled in the same way, only the front side is made on hinges.

After assembly, the box is carefully processed by sandpaper, painting and decorative finishing is carried out.

Recently, the technique of decorative decoration - decoupage - has become widespread. This is a cutting out of paper, magazines or postcards of bright colorful pictures. Cut out pictures are pasted onto the surface and covered with several layers of varnish. Subjects of pictures can be selected in accordance with the house or the surrounding landscape. So you get original mailboxes. It is not difficult to make them with your own hands.

Mailbox with an alarm flag

The box will be located on the inside of the fence. With an alarm flag, an American mail box is being made. We will decorate it with our own hands, in addition, it will require a stump with a cut. They are made from a profile pipe 50 × 25 mm.

The bottom of the box is cut from plywood with a thickness of at least 10 mm with dimensions 400 × 400 mm, carefully ground and dyed.

When the paint dries, the base is attached to the stand with screws. The resulting platform is installed to the fence and secured.

Creative process

On the outside of the fence, opposite the platform, a slot for correspondence is cut. Its dimensions are 250 × 20 mm. On both sides of the slit, the plates are fixed. On the outside of the fence, on the upper part of the lining, a bolted joint is fixed to the flap. The screw with the nut is not fully tightened, allowing the flap to move to the right and left. To ensure that the connection is not loosened during operation and the nut does not come off the screw, a counter nut is tightened over it. Mailboxes, made with their own hands, will not only attract attention, but will also bring joy to the owners of the house.

The signal device consists of two plates located at an angle of 90 ° relative to each other and fixed to a steel rod. A signaling device is arranged so that the raised plate is in front of the slot in the fence, and the other is lying on the platform. Placed postal mail will put a plate, and the signal plate will rise. In the absence of mail, the device must be in the working position, for this purpose a counterweight in the form of a small load is installed on the upper edge of the signal plate.

On the platform, a rod with plates is fixed by means of coal loops. The hinges are screwed to the platform with screws, positioned as close as possible to the plates. This eliminates the fall of the rod from the loops.

The frame for the box is made of bars measuring at least 15 × 15 mm. The parameters are determined by the size of the mail correspondence - 350 × 250 × 250 mm. On the platform, the box is positioned so that the signal plate is outside its limits.

The box is tailored according to the fact that it will be stylized. It can be a doll house, in a rustic style or in the form of a warehouse lined with sheets of iron.

To imitate a village house, the trimming of the board of a lining is good. The walls of the doll house can be made from fiberboard (wood-fiber board) with pasted napkins for decoupage. The warehouse is lined with pieces of galvanized sheet metal. To make the completed look help the signal plate, cut out in the form of the corresponding character.

To be able to pick up the mail, the upper part of the box, it's also the roof of the house, is folded. To do this, use small furniture loops, which connects the base of the roof with the back of the box. Also in the back of the box you need to make a cutout for correspondence.

We fasten the components

The connection of all parts is made with glue and nails. After the assembly we decorate the mailboxes with our own hands with the colors of the corresponding colors. Wooden details of the house are carefully painted. The paint is selected glossy water resistant. The assembled house is attached to the platform, close to the fence, the cut-out in the back wall is combined with the slit in the fence.

Any mailbox can be supplemented with electrical signaling. It consists of two contact plates, two wires, a battery and a light bulb. A simple electrical circuit is assembled, in the rupture of which there are contact plates. Plates are cut from a plastic bottle, some ends remain attached to each other, contact strips are fixed to the others. A soft spring is placed between the plates. Plates are placed on the bottom of the box. The correspondence in the mailbox closes its contacts by its weight, and the control lamp lights up.

When everything is finished, and the design is installed in place, on the outside of the fence, near the slot for correspondence, it is necessary to make an explanatory inscription "MAIL".

Style and prestige

Looks great forged mailbox. With his hands can make a man who perfectly cope with the welding tool. First comes up with a layout. It is cut out of metal, the parts are welded and fixed to a permanent place. It is important to think over a small foundation for the box. So it will stay for a longer period of time.

Any shape and size can be a street mail box. With your hands, you can create a real masterpiece.