We offer Leopold Benches either fully assembled or as kits. Some of you may wish to purchase your own supplies–given the cost of shipping heavy lumber, I can’t blame you.

If you are interested in making your own bench, using simple cuts and tools, check out our kit assembly guides. You can cut your own lumber and then follow the instructions. They are very detailed, with step by step photographs.

You can find the Assembly Guides here: Leopold Assembly Guides

The last couple of weeks have been focused on writing assembly guides for our kit products. We offer our smaller chicken coop (the Crestview) and the Leopold Benches as kits.

The nice thing about the kits is that the hard work is done. Everything comes pre-cut, and the complicated things (like the Core and mitered door frames) are prefabricated. All you need is a screwdriver, a drill, and some other common tools. The other benefit is that the Crestview coop kit is small enough to fit into the trunk of a car. This makes it easier for people without access to a truck, and it will perhaps allow us to be able to ship the kit. (Shipping costs are a drag. All that “shipping is free!” is BS–between $200 to $400 of your cost is in shipping!)

It’s been slow going. Evelyn has been doing a great job getting the core document together, but then I just drag. I’m having a harder time these days sitting in front of a computer — I’d rather be in the shop building something. But, this is part of the business, so you gotta do what you gotta do.

The guides are coming together quite nicely. Long (50+ pages), but nicely detailed. Each step has a photo and descriptive text, which should make things easier for people. Plus, we’ve built three of the Crestview coops so far, so we know the most efficient way to do the final assembly.

I’m also thinking of making a couple of short videos to supplement the guides. Sometimes it’s just easier to watch a short video, get the gist of things, and then follow the text.

A lot of this attention to detail is based on experience we’ve gained from building quite a few different kits. Some things that we’ve learned:

• Putting the assembly instructions on-line only is a great way to save costs, but is very frustrating for the end users. A number of kits we’ve built have had their instructions available on-line only. That means you need to have a PC near your work area, or print out a HTML file that may not print cleanly.  And scrolling sucks. So, all of our kits will come with printed manuals. If someone is paying hundreds of dollars for a kit, they deserve a printed guide.
• Simple diagrams are great when you want to avoid printing multilingual guides, but are too vague for anything complicated. All of our guides will use plain language to describe what is happening, along with a photo which illuminates the text. You won’t get a one page poorly translated document from us, but a well thought out guide, which will logically walk you through the assembly process.
• Call out important points. We’ve been careful to highlight critical steps in the process. Those points that could impede success. In addition, we’ve added plenty of Notes. The Notes explain why certain things are important, so that the builder can have a better understanding of the thought processes that went into the design.
• All assembly guides will be available on-line, before you purchase. How many people have had that sinking feeling when they open up a kit and realize it’s beyond their skill level? Quite a few, I would guess. That is why we are putting everything on-line (PDF) so that you can review the document before you buy. We want people to be happy with our products, not frustrated.
• Give the builder a sense of satisfaction, but don’t make it a death march. Originally we considered making the Crestview coop a cut-only kit, with no prefabricated portions. We quickly realized that this would make the kit too difficult for the casual builder. So we took a look at anything that required special tools, jigs, or alignment. Those parts (the door frames, fixed frames, core, and roof) have all been prefabricated. You don’t need to cut sheet metal, or seal the roof with silicone, all while centering on a frame — that complicated process is handled by us. You get a prefabricated assembly that simply needs to be mounted to the unit with a couple of brackets.

With any luck we’ll be done with both of the assembly guides this week, at which point we’ll be able to offer the kits for purchase.

We’ve decided to start naming our coop models, using Austin neighborhood names. Our first one will be called the “Brentwood” and the second the “Crestview” (we live right on the border of the two). Here is our second model, sitting outside drying (with the roof off):

As you can see, it uses the same format as the other coop. This is by design, as it allows us to use interchangable components. A door on the Crestview will work on the Brentwood. All of the doors and fixed panels use the same basic design: 45 degree miter joints with biscuits. There is very little work done “in place” — it’s all made up of components. This makes it easier to mass produce, and opens the possibility of pre-fab kits.

In the above photo you can see that one lower panel has a wooden insert. Here is a closeup:

I routed a slot into the frame, in which a 5 mm plywood sheet runs. This was our first version of this “run access” door. This side of the coop will be where the chicken run will be attached. During the day, you slide this door open so that the chickens can roam a bit. At night, you close it up. It works okay, but I’m not entirely happy with it. “Not entirely happy with it” is a Ron euphemism for “I think it’s too complicated and need to build a better one”.

Here is a front view of the coop, with the roof in place:

Here you are seeing how the doors work on our coops — this is the “special sauce” I kept alluding to. None of our doors use hinges. Everything is a sliding door. This gives you full-width access, if you need it. It also makes it harder for critters to open (there will be a locking mechanism, not visible here). Plus, you can remove the doors to reduce weight while moving/installing the unit.

To give you an idea of how important this concept is to our coops, look at the bigger Brentwood model:

The Brentwood premium model has eight access doors. Both upper and lower doors on the ends open. Two upper side panels open, along with the two smaller storage doors above them. There is nowhere in this coop you can’t get to. Have a sick bird? Just slide away the nearest panel to get to it. No need to crawl in.

Since the solid and screen panels are interchangable, you can swap out panels depending on conditions. Cooler weather on the way? Just replace the screens with solids. Having problems with the late day sun in summer? No problem. Put the solid doors to the West. Want full ventilation? Put in all screens.

The coop has one fixed solid wall, on the lower end of the roof slope. That’s the side that should face the South during the summer — the wall creates shade, and the pitch of the roof reflects off that 3 PM Texas sun.

Finally, here’s a shot of the nesting boxes:

If you check out some other coop designs, you’ll notice that many have built-in nesting boxes, with a small egg access door. That’s a fine idea, but wasn’t the route we wanted to take. Why? Because we learned an important lesson from Evelyn’s mom in Puerto Rico: Hens will lay eggs in just about anything they can get their bodies into. Her mom uses a variety of containers, simply wired to the sides of her chainlink open-air coop. No fancy egg access doors. No fancy ramps (chickens can fly, after all). Dead simple.

So, we went with the idea of creating individual nesting boxes, made out of 1 x 12 pine. The boxes are about a foot square with an open top and a ledge to keep the bedding in (most visible in the upper right box in the photo). Got more chickens? Just buy another box or two (hens share boxes–one box will handle 2-3 hens). Want to put new bedding in the box? Just take it out, dump it into the garbage can, and re-bed. No digging around with a dustpan and a wire brush.

This movable nesting boxes are an important part of our bigger Brentwood model, since we designed that to have movable roosts and nesting areas. You aren’t stuck with having the nesting boxes always at one end. You can swap them. We did this so that people could more easily orient their coop to their land and to the local weather conditions.

But wait, there’s more! Once we have the two models set up in the backyard again, you’ll see another benefit of our Sustainable Urban Module design. Stay tuned.

We’ve been busy working on Coop #2 — a smaller version of our design. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos handy. I’ll take some tomorrow and post them up. For now, here are the highlights:

• Built out Coop #2. This one went together a lot faster, because we worked though a lot of our problems during the design of the first model. It had (and has) its challenges, but nothing too horrible. This model is 3 feet by 3 feet and 4 feet tall. Two sliding doors on one side (for nest/egg and food/water access), and a special run door. A tin roof like the other model. We’re very happy with this one because it’s very light (probably a 1/4 the weight of the big model). It’s not as super-modular as the big model, but it incorporates the imporant aspects, while keeping the materials price lower.
• Built out a 3 foot by 6 foot run. This is an attachment for the coops. Made of a frame and ‘chicken wire’. It gives the birds more (safe) roaming area. Important for the smaller coop, which doesn’t have much floor space.  We are also making another attachment which allows this to be connected either parallel or perpendicular to the coop. (It will make more sense when I post some photos.)
• Today Evelyn treated both coops, and all their doors, etc, with wood protector. This will help protect the cedar from the elements, prevent rot near the bottom, etc. The units looks great (a nice natural look) and are drying overnight. It took nearly a gallon to cover everything. Cedar loves to soak up that stuff.
• Designed and completed 4 nesting boxes. These are the units which the hens will have their nests / lay their eggs. Looks like a 12 inch square cube, with an open top and side. At first we were going to do these with cedar, but it was too time consuming. Then we were going to try plywood, but it was a hassle. Ended up using 12 inch pine boards. Costs a bit more in materials, but a LOT less in labor. The end result are rock-solid nests that will be very easy to maintain.

Tomorrow we’re going to be working on some alternate versions of doors (trying to make the chicken run doors easier to make), and building out the run attachment. Then we’ll play with the roost setup a bit.

Let’s see, what else… Finished up most of my wind generator (finally). Mounted it on a short post (as a demo), and Evelyn painted everything black. It looks very cool. We’re going to put it next to the coops as an example of what people can do. For example, you could have a little wind generator charge a battery, and use that to drive ventilation fans, LED lights, etc.

In the next week or so I’ll probably be starting two new projects, a solar oven and a solar food dryer. These will be two more “sustainable urban modules” that will make up our product offering, and will be designed so that they can be shipped as kits.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m starting to dream about coop building. This is not always a good thing.

It seems like we’ve been working on the big prototype forever. But not really. I was shocked to see that this photo was taken on July 10th:

It’s when we were prototyping part of the design (“way back” when we were going to make the roof tilting).

And now here we are on August 7th:

Quite a bit done — most of the time was spent working through problems. And I was busy working for the Conservation District — a whole new application was built in this same time. No wonder I’m tired!

We’ve been making pretty good progress on our large chicken coop prototype. We’ve got the siding on, most of the sides complete, and have it roofed. Putting the roof on really make it seem like a “finished” structure.

Here you are looking at the “South” side of the coop (the one with the lengths of boards). The roof slopes down to the south, so that the rest of the unit can get more shade. Heat is a huge problem with chickens (they handle cold much better than heat), so our design has to take that into account (hence the galvanized roof versus shingles, etc).

We have the roof material running horizontally since it comes in 2.5′ x 6′ pieces, and going that way meant no cuts. We aren’t in a snow zone, so we don’t have to worry about snow building up (and rain dries in an hour under the Texas sun). The roof is held with lathe screws, and sealed with clear silicone.

In the above photo you can see that the bottom is all screened in, and that the end has a solid door (top) and a screened door (bottom). Below is the other end of the coop:

As you can see, the birds will get more air on this side. The idea is to put the roost on the screened end, and the nest boxes on the solid wall end. (Hens prefer laying eggs in darker conditions, and it protects them a bit more.)

Here is a 3/4 view of the “North” (or “Front”) of the coop:

You can see a solid section (on the nesting box side), and then a screen section. Plenty of ventilation, and this side faces North, so you are protected by the shade of the roof.

The upper section (below the rafters) is designed for potential storage. Here is a close up of one of the panels. We were playing around with using old beer cans as a panel design:

The above door was one that used corrugated nails to hold the miter joints together — hence the “slop” in the upper right. The biscuit doors are FAR better and feel like a solid unit. One other thing you can see in the photo is the screening we use for the middle rafter area. The center is open, to improve airflow along the roof (so heat doesn’t build up in the upper part of the unit).

Finally, here is a bit of the inside. This is where we’ll be installing the ramp, shelves, hen boxes, and roost.

There is no gap more that 1/2″ in the unit — most gaps are smaller. And we are using 1/2″ “hardware cloth” (a very strong metal mesh) for all of the screened surfaces. This is done to keep those pesky predators out. Humans and foxes and hawks and raccoons all LOVE chicken. They go for the birds. They go for the eggs, and they are VERY smart. Something we’ve had to keep in mind throughout the project.

For example, you can see in the photo above that we used metal lathe screws (on 6″ centers) to hold the “cloth”. Staples were simply not strong enough to protect the area, especially given that our whole lower level is screen.

Once we have the coop outside we’ll shoot a video so that you can see it in action — and see the “special sauce” that makes this coop pretty interesting. Stay tuned.

Here we are with the coop on Thursday the 23rd:

In the above you can see the basic chicken coop frame. Three rectangles, about 3′ x 6′, with posts. Since we’ll have a shed roof, one side is 4′ high, the other is 5′ high.

On Monday the 27th we have this:

Things are hot in Austin, which explains the sleeveless shirt and the bandana. In this photo you can see that we have the roof rafters in place (complete with birds mouth cuts), and the frames for the doors in place.

As of today, we have the doors complete (more to come-there is some Super Secret Stuff involved), and the inside mounting stuff is coming along. Over the weekend we’ll be working on the hen boxes (where they lay the eggs), getting the mesh installed, and finishing up the panels on the doors.

Evelyn and I have been working on a chicken coop project. Not because we want to raise chickens (we had enough of that in Puerto Rico), but because there is a huge increase in urban farming, including keeping hens for eggs. (Austin allows you to keep chickens, as long as the coop is 50′ from neighbors.) We have the tools, we have the time, so why not try getting into the coop business?

Projects require planning, which usually means going through books. Why not the good old Internet? Because most of the plans out there are either (a) not free or (b) suck. There is some good stuff out in the ether, but you have to wade through about a million sites willing to sell you their designs. I understand, but no thanks.

Here is our dining room table, covered with a bunch of woodworking books:

What’s that thing in the middle? It’s a prototype. Let me explain:

I’ve seen a growing trend toward CAD/CAM work and CNC machines. This is where you design your model on a computer and then have another computer do the cuts (or whatever) for you. I see a lot of builders working with CNC routers and laser cutters, spending hours working on their programs, so they can be “printed” on the equipment.

The concept interests me, except for the fact that people are spending more time in front of a computer than actually building things.

I’m a firm believer that if you can’t use a router by hand, then you shouldn’t use a CNC router. It’s simply because you don’t understand materials, and how they fit together, until you actually hold them in your hands. You don’t really know that something is going to work until you put it together. Computer models are nice, and can save time, but can often lead to disaster. (Ask any Airbus or Boeing engineer about the limits of CAD/CAM.)

And, quite frankly, I can knock together a scale sized working prototype in 1/8th of the time that I could develop the computer model. Maybe it’s because my workworking skills surpass my computer skills. Probably. Though it’s a heck of a lot faster for me to make changes and play around and really see the piece when I’m in the shop–not at my computer.

Here is another photo of the scale model. In this model we’re working on a roof mechanism:

We are able to see, in “real time”, how the unit is going to work. It helps us to see the final product in our minds, in a far more concrete way than any computer model could represent.

So, the next time your are going to build something, I’d recommend actually building it, instead of sitting in front of a computer. The result is far more satisfying, and you find out about problems far soooner.