Mix and Match Birdfeeder by Alzibiff

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

I added a hanging loop onto GavinKennedy's bird feeder and published it as a remix some weeks ago. All was fine and dandy, an excellent project which enabled me to 'upcycle' quite a number of our used fizzy drink bottles. However .... the only downside for me was the fact that it didn't take long for the pigeons in our garden to work out a way of clinging on to the feeder and emptying it within a few hours - the little birds just didn't stand a chance and although it was quite amusing to watch the pigeons flap about in an effort to get all of the seed out of the drink bottle, I decided that I wanted to make a bird feeder along the same lines as the one which GavinKennedy had designed but which was pretty much large bird / pigeon proof.
I ended up with a few designs and components which has enabled me to do some experimenting - hence the mix and match title.
There are two feeder bodies - one of which is pretty similar to Gavins. The second has no outer ring and only three spokes. To make a single bird feeder, you only need one of these.
There are three roof types - again, for a single bird feeder, you only need one. The flat roof is the easiest to print and uses minimal plastic. Unfortunately, rain will form pools on this roof which tend to splash the birds as they land. (No so much of a problem in light showers). The slanted and steep roofs requires some careful planning when it comes to slicing. I found that my slicer would print a solid plastic piece - no hollow infill - with my normal settings simply because of the gentle slope on these components.
To join the roof to the main body, you will need one of the connectors. These screw into the roof and main feeder body using the same thread type as the drinks bottle. I have experimented with four different lengths and found that all work just as well as each other - so far, I have not seen any pigeons getting under the longest '80' connector and have not found that the 20 connector causes any issues for the smaller birds - it does not bring the roof too close to the bird seed.
Attach the loop piece to your drinks bottle - I have tried lots of different sizes with no problems - by making holes in your drinks bottle about 20mm or so (not critical) from its base. The holes should be on opposite sides of the bottle of course - you can either cut slots using a craft knife or use something like a 5mm drill bit.