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Jul 10, 2011

The Vicksburg Queen - by William @ LumberJocks.com ~ woodworking community


The spiral staircases rising from the front main deck. The safety rails that were constructed with 170 tiny posts that I cut and drilled holes on to hold the 60 feet of metal wire that I painted red and run through it. The paddle wheel that can be turned by hand. I wanted this feature because I knew that anyone coming near it would try to. So far I’ve been right. Every single person who has visited my shop while I have been working on it, the first thing they done was reach up and turn the paddle wheel. And of course the fact that, with the many hours I spent on this project, that it is not at all just a fancy show piece. It is in fact a functional bird house that is now mounted in my front yard. There has already been two birds checking it out. I mounted it near the road for a reason too. There has already been several cars come to a stop in front of my house to get a good look at it. I am also proud of this one for a different reason. I build most of the time from plans. This project was not one of them. I just made this one up as I went along. I wrote a blog series on it if you’d like to read about the build. You can find the twelve part blog series here. Thank you for looking. And if you like it, I would much appreciate your vote in the contest.


The Vicksburg Queen
I swore long ago that I’d never build another birdhouse. Then the Birds Of A Feather contest here at Lumberjocks came along. I decided to build something. This is what I came up with. The inspiration behind this bird house is the Mississippi Queen).  
I was fascinated by the Mississippi Queen as a small child when it used to dock weekly in my hometown of Vicksburg, Mississippi. My mother used to carry my brother and I down to see it. I knew I couldn’t build a boat that matched the beauty in my memories of the Mississippi Queen. So, in the end, I wound up naming my creation The Vicksburg Queen. My birdhouse is meant for purple martins. It contains sixteen different individual compartments inside. There are eight holes on each side for the birds to access them. It is 12” wide, 14” tall, not counting the smoke stacks. It is 54” long. A few things I wanted to note.  

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