outdoor glued panel durability

[danbee]

Hi all,

Say you were making a 2x1x1 ft bird house to be hung outdoors.  You could make a glued panel for the roof using Titebond 3, with a design so rain would drain off.  If you left it unfinished, how long would it last?  This is in NorCal in a part with no snow.  Not wanting to put finish on, this is actually for solitary bees. 

Perhaps I could paint just the top?

Or is there a way to make a panel for outdoor use with no glue?

[Coop]

Aside from buying a board the size of your roof, I don’t know of a way to joint two boards, water tight, without glue and TB III is my go to when I build birdhouses for my purple martins. If you are concerned about the finish for the bees safety, I have been looking into bee keeping and it seems that most hives are made from pine and painted. 

[Tpt life]

Cedar shingles would last years, why does it need to be one piece?

[Coop]

Certainly an idea worth considering. Not that familiar with cedar shingles but don’t you need a substrate to nail to, like ply? 

[treeslayer]

Made a couple out of all cedar, made shingles out of cedar and used pin nailer and TB3 to secure them to the roof, treated with 2 coats of Watco natural oil, holding up quite well after 3 years 

[wtnhighlander]

I've made a few birdhouses from western red cedar, they last many years with no finish. Boards can be joined into a glue-free panel with wedge shaped sliding dovetail battens, which work amazingly well in soft wood. But TB3 is supposed to be waterproof, so the battens seem like more trouble than necessary.

[Chestnut]

13 hours ago, danbee said:

Hi all,

Say you were making a 2x1x1 ft bird house to be hung outdoors.  You could make a glued panel for the roof using Titebond 3, with a design so rain would drain off.  If you left it unfinished, how long would it last?  This is in NorCal in a part with no snow.  Not wanting to put finish on, this is actually for solitary bees. 

Perhaps I could paint just the top?

Or is there a way to make a panel for outdoor use with no glue?

A long time. I've made a few birdhouses that survive snow -40F weather, rain thunderstorms. The roofs are glued with TB III. I just replaced one that was out there for 4 years. It wasn't the TB III that failed, a deer decided to try and break into it.

Use a good outdoor wood like Cedar or redwood I'd just leave the wood raw. There are too many finishes that could impact the insects and birds that choose to call the place home. Food safe for humans doesn't mean food safe for insects and birds.

If you want to have the greatest success buy the wood and store it outside for a few weeks to acclimate to the conditions in your yard. It's likely it's goign to dry out quite a bit. Then glue together. The main thing that would cause failure is the wood dropping moisture to equalize with the environment and cracking as a result.

[Tom King]

You can buy copper sheet metal in small sizes off ebay.  Put copper on it, and everything else will be gone long before the roof is gone.

[Ronn W]

Wait a minute.  Hold the bus!  Bird houses are great fun but I have never seen a bird nest with a roof on it. So if your roof takes 2 boards and a little water get in at the jointm I don't thin the birds will mind.  If they complain just lower the rent.

[Tpt life]

I have seen many bird nests with “roof” systems of sorts. Many cavity dwellers that bore into dead trees and limbs prefer the enclosure. 

[Coop]

The last two Martin houses I built, I got something similar to this from my cousin that owns a sign company. My biggest problem was the warping as each side of the roof was 36” x 24”. This eliminated that problem.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Falken-Design-12-in-x-36-in-x-1-8-in-Thick-Aluminum-Composite-ACM-White-Sheet-Falken-Design-ACM-WT-1-8-1236/308670323?source=shoppingads&locale=en-US&pla&mtc=Shopping-VF-F_D29A-G-D29A-Multi-Multi-NA-Feed-PLA_LIA-NA-NA-MinorAppl_Special_Buys&cm_mmc=Shopping-VF-F_D29A-G-D29A-Multi-Multi-NA-Feed-PLA_LIA-NA-NA-MinorAppl_Special_Buys-71700000042813121-58700005464629311-92700067963002094&gclid=CjwKCAiAz--OBhBIEiwAG1rIOnct5QFdP62Zdae_l1LMs2_lagDU2cQ6ZKgneiPfeYOVaLQsW5TCYRoCGjgQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

[Mark J]

@Coop, that's a very interesting material.  You could probably cut it with any carbide tipped blade.  Just have to figure out how to join it.

[Tom King]

I put up a Martin box about 40 years ago.  I had some thin Honduras Mahogany for some odd reason-like 1/4".  I put Mahogany shingles on the roof.  It was on a used telephone pole.  A few years ago, it fell down when the post rotted.  It was pretty much smashed to smithereens, but the Mahogany roof was still keeping the inside dry, after examining the pile.  I just pushed the whole thing up with the front end loader, and carried it to the trash pile.

[Coop]

On 1/11/2022 at 12:49 PM, Mark J said:

@Coop, that's a very interesting material.  You could probably cut it with any carbide tipped blade.  Just have to figure out how to join it.

That’s how I cut it. The only jointing I’ve done was on the roof peak where the two pieces met, I ran a bead of silicone and then overlapped that joint with 2” wide strips with silicone.  I know it sounds a little extravagant but these houses are winched up and down yearly on a 2” pipe for cleaning and materials alone cost over $250 each so I want them to last as long as possible. 

[tperson]

I'm in the midwest and a beekeeper...pretty sure our university says that solitary bee 'hives' need to be taken down and cleaned or replaced every year. We have primarily leafcutter and mason bees here in nebraska...might do some research and see what the local bee authorities recommend.

[Coop]

On 1/12/2022 at 4:33 PM, tperson said:

I'm in the midwest and a beekeeper...pretty sure our university says that solitary bee 'hives' need to be taken down and cleaned or replaced every year. We have primarily leafcutter and mason bees here in nebraska...might do some research and see what the local bee authorities recommend.

I was pretty sure I wanted a bee hive to help with pollination of my garden and bought a couple of books on the subject. According to the first 50 or so pages of the first book, it appears that bee keeping is just that and not just throwing a few thousand bees in a box with a queen? It seems pretty intense and in need of constant supervision?

[JohnG]

@Coop you can be a “bee haver” instead of a “bee keeper.” Put out a hive box in a good location and there’s a decent chance that some honey bees will make it their home. I’ve known several people that do this, one guy has about 10 colonies that he’s never managed. Sure, sometimes they leave or a colony collapses, but then another comes along and picks up where they left off. You would only need to clean it out if it gets infested with mites or some other pest.
 

You can’t rely on having a honey supply, but bees are fully capable of living and surviving without human intervention (and arguably they’d be far better off in general if it weren’t for pesky humans and their insecticides anyway).

Hive boxes are made to be the ideal size for bees, if they discover it, they’ll want to make it their home.

[danbee]

Thanks for the feedback everyone!  I remembered I had some tongue and groove cedar planks, so glued up some for the roofs.  The supports are dovetailed into the bottom panel (maple I think) and should flex when the bottom panel or roof moves with the weather.  The blocks with various sized holes for different species and sizes of bees are removable for annual inspection or replacement as tperson mentioned.  These solitary bees don't sting, don't make honey, but are even better pollinators than honey bees, as they don't pack pollen away in sacs but all over their underside belly hairs.  I didn't put any finish on, so we'll see how they last!

[curlyoak]

That should work. It looks like aromatic cedar. Cost  more money. The white wood (sap) will not hold up as good as the heart wood. I think the weakest link is the base. Well made but the wood might be a problem. Next time make it all with western red cedar if you are buying more. If you have aromatic cedar on hand, eliminate the sap wood.

[Mark J]

Those holes look perfect for carpenter bees.

[Coop]

My wife’s uncle that lives in the country showed me a way to deal with carpenter bees. They go into the hole, fall into the bottle to never bore another hole. The plank behind this setup is pecan and you can see the hole one made before I gave them a manufactured home.

 

[treeslayer]

So carpenter bees can be a nuisance as well as beneficial?

[RichardA]

On 2/7/2022 at 8:18 PM, treeslayer said:

So carpenter bees can be a nuisance as well as beneficial?

I don't get why they are called Carpenter Bees.  They don't build squat. They destroy things.  And they don't make honey that we can steal.

[Coop]

They bore holes as clean as a drill bit and then tunnel throughout the wood. Like Rick said, if there is a benefit, it is overwhelmed by their destructiveness. 

[wtnhighlander]

My house has WRC siding, and those bees have turned sections of it into swiss cheese. Those bottle-style traps are 'the bees knees'!