Birdhouse

thingiverse

## Octagonal Birdhouse Or more exactly, a 3D printed roof and floor for an octagonal birdhouse made of wood that combines innovative design with ease of construction. I was drawn to the unique octagonal shape but found that creating a roof and floor from sheet metal and wood could be time-consuming. To simplify this process, I turned to 3D printing these parts. The floor component boasts an impressive mechanism for securing it in place using eight pistons that extend 8mm from each side when turning the knob. This design makes it extremely easy to clean out old nests and simplifies the construction process, requiring only eight shallow 10mm holes drilled into the middle of each wall about two centimeters from the bottom. Similarly, on the top of the walls, I created a system for holding the roof in place using pistons that extend when a knob is turned. This makes it effortless to secure the roof and ensures that the entire structure remains stable. The roof is permanently attached once the walls are glued together around it and the assembled floor. By laying down all the prepared walls with their exterior sides facing upwards, taping them together, then carefully lifting them up and adding glue while wrapping them around the roof and bottom, I found this method to be highly effective. Given its small diameter, a 25mm hole is likely the most suitable size for accommodating small birds. ## Source Included I've included free source files from FreeCad and Blender that detail the design of the roof and floor components. ## Printing When printing the roof part, it's essential to use supports. However, I found that relying on auto-generated support often results in an excessive amount of unnecessary structure filling the cone. Instead, I achieved better results by turning off auto-support and enabling 'force support for first layers' under Slic3r settings for the bottom part.