JacobCoffinWrites

JacobCoffinWrites, 8 months ago

I really dig these! I never really considered gondola-type cable cars for practical use outside of ski mountains, and I really like the idea! I don’t know if I can make one work in this scene but if I can’t, they’re definitely going on my list for future photobashes! Even with whatever rough maintenance roads necessary to get to the posts, these seem like a super low-impact, and probably pretty cheap, way to cross terrain.

JacobCoffinWrites, 8 months ago

Thanks! It was just a quick one, but it’s nice when you can combine leftovers from other projects into something someone wants (and really nice to get that space back)

JacobCoffinWrites, 8 months ago

Yeah it loses a bit for my wanting to have everything, (inside and out) in one shot. My attention span is an intense but fickle thing and there’s always a risk I’ll just drop a project halfway through and work on something else for a few months, so I’ve been trying to jam as many ideas as possible into each of these pictures because I don’t know when I’ll revisit each concept - plus they take multiple days to make as-is. Wanting to show the solar reflector and solar water heater meant it was easier to stage the scene from the outside looking in, but a more full shot of the kitchen would have worked better from inside. There’s a reason those old ‘kitchen of the future’ advertisements were all indoors. At this point I’m kind of going for breadth more than depth, and once I’ve got one version of everything on the list, I’ll hopefully come back and dial in on specifics.

JacobCoffinWrites, 8 months ago

Thanks!! I’ve really come to enjoy reexamining old technologies and ways of doing things to see if they make sense in a society with different priorities (reducing harm, rather than extracting profits) and with modern technology available to augment/improve them.

JacobCoffinWrites, 8 months ago

I’ll probably do one if I do another cityscape at some point

JacobCoffinWrites, 8 months ago

This is cool! I’m going to have some fun reading it and filling in some knowledge gaps! I often see this stuff through a bit of a writing perspective and I could see something like this, more developed perhaps and running on a meshnet, being a sort of central nexus around which a society could rebuild or an alternative society establish itself.

JacobCoffinWrites, 8 months ago

I finished the poured concrete 45° blocks for my neighbor’s raised bed. I’ll post pictures soon, though it isn’t terribly nice looking since the local rabbits got to the new flowers before I could get a picture (they’re perennials so they’ll be back next year).

About an hour ago I ‘fixed’ our washing machine - the lid switch failed yesterday, which prevented it from draining. Great design btw. I disconnected it, and added a jumper made from lampwire so it thinks the lid is always closed. That let us finish the laundry and skip hiring a repair company. I could get a replacement switch online but I don’t really see the need, it’ll just break again someday and I don’t feel like the marginal safety benefit is worth it. Just leave the lid closed while it’s running.

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

Very much agreed! There’s a great section in Ecotopia about their appliances being uglier than American ones, but way more repairable, using common, compatible parts and simple construction. They didn’t allow products to go to market unless a volunteer committee of regular people with common tools were able to fix the most likely issues. I think a lot about how different the power tools I’ve inherited from my grandfather (with their external, standard-dimension motors and fairly open frames), are from say our washer and dryer, where everything is packed tightly into a sleek-looking shell. If my drill press motor ever goes, I can replace it with one from any local hardware store - if something goes wrong with my dryer, it’ll take a lot more research, careful disassembly, and I might need to call a specialist. Same for small appliances - why is there a Printed Circuit Board in my blender, which works exactly as well as my grandmother’s blender from the 1960s, which I could fix with patience, a soldering iron, and a multimeter?

I’ll have to look at older appliance catalogues and see if I can find any designs that make repairability visually clear - thanks!

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

Thanks! Those pedal powered designs actually seem pretty practical! They remind me of a grinding wheel my dad used to use to sharpen knives and axes - I was always amazed at how well it worked for the minimal effort of the pedal.

Thank you for giving me the right words to describe seasonality! - and the scope of impacts on your life. I’ve been thinking that a properly solarpunk society is going to have a lot of cultural differences from modern life, originally I’d been thinking mostly a different pace, with less desperate urgency in all tasks, less emphasis on always finding another way to make money because money means safety and stability and basic dignity. But I think it’d probably be a lot more than that, and I think adjusting our lives to the seasons (where applicable) would be a big part of that - and part of what would make solarpunk cultures extremely varied and unique to their immediate surroundings. Wonderful world building potential in seeing how location, weather, and the existing resources, like infrastructure, technology, and reusable parts, shape each community.

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

A root cellar is a great fit for the design I’m thinking of - if we’re already building an addition for this summer kitchen, the space underneath is a great spot for a root cellar!

I’d been wondering if an icebox is reaching back too far or too much of a stretch for modern audiences - I grew up listening to stories from my grandparents about harvesting ice in the winters (the winter crop) and storing it under sawdust (and getting in trouble for hiding in the ice house on hot days). I also got to help with an ice harvest recreation at a farm museum for a few years. I’m fond of the concept but wonder if easier technologies can be done ‘greenly’ enough that people wouldn’t see it as a worthwhile alternative (whether that’s PV panels and a battery powering a chest freezer (or chest fridge) or perhaps something like RoboGroMo’s idea to replace the propane heat component of an RV fridge with a solar concentrator. Like I’ve mentioned, I like reexamining older technologies to see if they’d be a good fit for a society with different priorities, modern technology to augment it, and possibly fewer resources overall. If it seems practical enough I’m happy to include it!

I can see the emphasis on local food, and shorter distances enabling more frequent trips to a market (while at the same time preserving more food in alternative ways) though I’m not sure yet how to show it in the same scene. Thanks for your suggestions!

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

Thanks!! I figure solarpunk societies should be very consensus-driven, so these depictions of them should be too! Folks here have some awesome ideas! Plus it’ll hopefully be good discussions, and worldbuilding fodder

Good luck with your writing! All my attempts at solarpunk come out a bit too postapocalyptic right now but I think I’m getting closer as I work on these pictures. I think we need more solutions-focussed scifi and art to help get people thinking about other ways life could be done. Seeing it demonstrated, even in fiction, really helps I think

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

Very cool idea! That seems like an easy thing to add and fermented foods are a great addition. I also like the mushroom idea and will add it to my list for future scenes!

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

This is really interesting, I’ve got some mushroom cultivation to read about! Cold and damp is an interesting feature set to look for in part of a building - damp is usually a bad deal for buildings around here (lots of wood and sheetrock). In places that could use quanats and wind towers for cooling, that might be a good fit? Or I wonder if it could be paired with a greenhouse as they’re also damp, and cooling one space could warm the other with waste heat? Probably wouldn’t need both at once though, so that might be out.

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

I think you’re going to like this design! I made the south wall and part of the roof kind of a greenhouse glass structure, lined with shelves of herbs! And some other plants. I think I’m getting near the end of this photobash - most of the big elements are in place, I’m mostly just hunting up all the kitchen clutter to fill the shelves and counters, and then I can start the details stage, where I make all the little tweaks and recoloring to geet the light right. I was hoping to finish today but it’ll probably be Monday

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

I’m not sure that I can help with play testing but if you want any more art, I’m already working on solarpunk photobashes and releasing them CC-BY so if you need any scenes you can’t find, let me know and I’ll add them to the to-do list.

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

…wordpress.com/postcards-from-a-solarpunk-future/

pixelfed.social/JacobCoffin

Photobashes are kind of digital collages with the goal of making a specific scene out of chopped-up photographs and textures, often mixing in a lot of painting.

I start with a sketch, then start scrounging up images that fit my goal. If I’m doing line art, I trace or convert each piece to lines before working with it, if I’m going for something like a render, I find relevant textures and use them to sort of clad the sketch, slowly building a scene.

I’ve been playing with a few styles from renders to line art comics; the level of realism tends to determine the amount of time it takes.

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

A solarpunk society is going to have many of the conflicts any human civilization tends to see. By working on fundamental inequalities and striving to provide safety nets and stability, we can remove a lot of motivations for crimes, but there’ll always be people who’ll try to cheat others, take harmful shortcuts, or commit crimes for reasons other than necessity. Serial killers spring to mind. Even within a fairly equal society you may have people who feel they could have had more, that they’ve been cheated out of a birthright of capitalist millionaire-hood or some good-old-days existence, real or imagined

How do you handle law enforcement, how do you contain genuinely dangerous people?

There’ll also be groups outside solarpunk communities. People who ascribe to old world values, who prioritize extraction and hoarding of resources, who push their externalities like waste onto others or their environment. They might be upstream, poisoning your water. Personally I see it as a fairly postapocalyptic setting, focused mostly on people rebuilding in a more thoughtful, deliberate, and inclusive way, so I don’t think it’s a stretch to say bandits and accelerationist survivalists will still be around on the fringes. Perhaps someone wants what you’ve built and they don’t want to share it with you, perhaps they disagree with the entire premise of your society and want it to stop existing.

How do you negotiate with these people? How do you work out some kind of arrangement that improves things? Can you avoid violence when the other people glorify it?

Even if you don’t think that stuff fits, that it’s not utopian enough, any community will be plagued with conflicts over the best way to accomplish something, even if most members agree overall on the goals. Environmental movements are full of disagreements over which tradeoffs to accept.

Here’s an example from something I’ve been thinking about recently: society needs a certain amount of steel and concrete, especially when rebuilding. You can reduce the overall amount, but that has other tradeoffs, you might need to harvest more lumber, deforesting certain areas, or cut back on housing or civil services, worsening peoples’ lives. Or you meet the required amounts - steel and concrete both take tremendous amounts of heat to produce. Your community could build a solar furnace using a ton of pivoting mirrors, and a parabolic concentrator, or a traditional fired furnace/kiln. The former will cover much more land, destroying habitats, and any birds who cross through the solar flux. The traditional system will produce lots of CO2 and other pollutants, and require fuel whose extraction process also damages habitats and will cost money or trade goods for as long as it runs. This kind of conflict is almost worse because most people involved want to do the right thing and have considered the options, they just prioritize different aspects of the problem.

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

I’ve tried posting the image as a response to this comment (I’m guessing you don’t want to turn off noscript or whichever adblocker you’re running) but it won’t upload, possibly because this thread is on lemmy.ml? The good news is I’ve also uploaded it to a few other places:

• …wordpress.com/…/repurposed-parking-garage-photob…
• www.artstation.com/artwork/w05GWO
• writing.exchange/

Hopefully one of those will work. If you know of a more fediverse-friendly image hosting solution I should be using, let me know!

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

Thanks, I’d missed that one somehow - just signed up! pixelfed.social/i/web/post/607237425340447357

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

I posted this months ago in the zerowaste community, but I’m pleased with this saddle stand I built for someone on my local Everything is Free page:

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/899f222b-128e-4ac2-8ac5-ac99149d12f8.webp

I built the top, and stained it to match the base which came from an old table my neighbor’s were throwing away (they’d even taken all the hardware and hinges off it!)

My current restoration project is on hold while I’m working on a raised bed with my neighbor. Were doing a kind of multi tier thing with concrete blocks, and I only realized after we bought the blocks that it was really hard to get compatible 45° pieces so I built a form out of my worst scrap particleboard and bought a bag of quickcrete:

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/36df472d-9bab-4eb4-9c0f-2e7a4c51fdf1.webp

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/33fa07c0-38cc-4857-9c71-f2a95a674564.webp

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

I like that! Maybe a restaurant with outdoor seating under the canopy where the pumps used to be

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

I love the colors and style!

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

I forgot to mention, I’m putting these out on a CC-BY license so you can use them for any solarpunk projects you have

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

I love these! Definitely adding them to the list!

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

That would be really cool! The highest rez versions are/will be here: …wordpress.com/postcards-from-a-solarpunk-future/

I’ll add any others I make there as well. I’m working on a street scene with a bike path/market and the repurposed parking garage, and I kind of just want to do a really simple straight-on shot of the garage like a postcard. After that, we’ll see

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

Workshops are definitely going on the list, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before. Music too - I might be able to fit a musician in the current scene, and I’ve been thinking about what buildings could be repurposed for concerts and what outdoor solarpunk concerts would look like (using at least partially natural amplification, like from a stone or concrete structure? Fewer disposable containers?) Street musicians are part of what makes city life a bit more vibrant, so that kind of public activity definitely fits

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

That’s definitely something I’m trying to build these scenes to include, especially as I work on cityscapes.

After having a similar conversation on a picture of a cabin I reposted to /c/art, I modified this scene of mine slrpnk.net/post/1708554 to make the second rickshaw with the water tank electric, and made sure it’s the kind that uses motorcycle-style controls so someone could operate it without the use of their legs. The hope being to convey that the operator isn’t excluded from this project. As I start working on pictures of places where people actually live, I very much want to get this right.

There’s a lot I don’t know (during that conversation I realized I don’t think I’ve ever been inside a house that would qualify as handicapped accessible) but I’m happy to listen. If you ever have any ideas/scenes you’d like to see realized, feel free to reach out, but it’ll be something I work at either way.

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

I’ll have to think about this - I like the idea of showing technology helping to fulfill solarpunk goals, and I’d love to find a way to make any new tech look repairable by design. At the same time, I want to avoid making scenes that look utopian or like some new technology will solve everything because I think there’s already a lot of art tagged solarpunk that does that.

If you have any scenes or details in mind, let me know!

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

These all came up on artstation or google tagged as solarpunk. They’re by no means the width and breadth of similar stuff, and I want to emphasize that I’m not saying they’re bad, just that I want to represent something else. I want to show good places that come after bad times, and I want them to feel obtainable.

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/85719658-afb9-4f31-ba76-f9050eb73696.webp

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/186efc55-05cf-4605-9faf-6f7b45426e3d.webp

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/ccb3a576-9e0e-4dbf-984d-31ccc6d072e0.webp

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/8f67bed0-3889-4f2e-a2fd-f09696adfc31.webp

![](slrpnk.net/…/210bc3ed-f591-4a75-9917-ad1620e12b24…

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/1c5dee8f-b049-4cf2-9e4f-5211de4f2191.webp

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/76339a64-5949-4087-a6b3-80f1404ead86.webp

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/83cb5a57-05af-4779-884d-99f0f0e64739.webp

As for utopia, I think it depends on what solarpunk stuff you consume. I’ve read a lot more short stories than I have other solarpunk media, and I’d say that at least at Rekoning Press and Little Blue Marble it’s much more concerned with what society looks like during and after climate disasters, and trying to find hope and options, ways through bad times. I wouldn’t say that I’m trying to depict something utopian, so much as looking for examples of other ways we could do things to mitigate the damage, or different, better ways to rebuild. Hope for the future when things look bad.

I think for visual art, the most common scenes and probably what people think of if they think ‘solarpunk’ probably looks like above, but I don’t know that for sure. That’s kind of why I want to make these.

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

Agreed about the tagging - if doesn’t have to be covert, if there isn’t the same kind of urgency, people might be able to do more elaborate designs and experiment more. I’ve read people talking about the thrill and secret identity feel of tagging, and I feel like that might be kind of diminished here. Like in the streets I’ve seen IRL that are set aside for graffiti, I don’t see as many marker tags, though some folks online and some of the local taggers seem to only hit government property or advertisements, so they might be reluctant to cover another artist’s work? In a solarpunk society that style might suffer from a touch of habitat loss.

Either way, I want to show this society isn’t one to strangle itself for appearances or property values. People would dress how they want, decorate their spaces how they want. I think there’s more punk in ‘solarpunk’ than I realized before reading more of the fiction and finding this space, and I’d like to show it in these scenes.

Of course it does mean making bonus art to cover walls within the art I’m already making, but if I think of it as environmental storytelling I’ll probably come up with some designs.

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

Exactly - these aren’t obtainable, there’s no roadmap to turn existing cities into this and most people living in them probably wouldn’t want to anyways. They don’t show the character and history and patcheork-ness that makes cities beautiful, they look more like corporate resorts. They’re very nice to look at but they don’t inspire me to change anything because it’s too far a jump from what we have.

I’ll add mixed residential spaces, and retrofitted houses, to the list!

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

Thank you! This is great information and I think I’ve got a couple ideas for where to use it! I really appreciate the details and visual references.

I love the DIY and recycled design of the algae farm you gave as an example, I think I can definitely add that and similar designs to scenes. I’ve also been gathering ideas for a scene of a dense little village for a more rural scene, and I think a larger setup could look good there. Same for in a scene of a homestead, combined with the solar cooker cookout.

I also really like the giant solar cooker junkyard idea. I have a bit of an idea in mind for a zoomed out scene with a junkyard surrounding the giant bright reflectors, and maybe a salvage crew towing a car in through the gates. I’ll see if I can work the mirror polishing windmill into a workshop scene if I do one, or perhaps onsite at the junkyard.

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

Thanks! I think there’s a wonderful opportunity in this kind of art to demonstrate alternatives! I’m planning one involving a city street next, and I’m happy to try to incorporate any ideas into what I’m planning. Hopefully it’ll include a parking garage that’s been filled in (kind of ad-hoc and colorfully) with living space, and a street that’s been replaced with a bike path and forest, with market stalls in the spaces between the trees. I’ll try to hint at a farm or park on the roof of the garage if possible.

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/0e944da9-1fc5-4dfd-adde-25272fd894eb.webp

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

I’ll look them up now! Thanks for the tip

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

Very much agreed with the others, unfortunately it’s mostly inspired by city or corporate vanity projects. I’m sure it can be done, if planned from the start with proper reinforcement, drainage, and mitigations for roots, but the cityscapes with trees stuck haphazardly to buildings we often see in art would probably be more hazard than ecological improvement. I recently started working on some scenes of (hopefully!) more realistic solarpunk locations, and I’d love to do some pictures of cityscapes that are genuinely solarpunk next. (Fewer skyscrapers, fewer roads, more focus on pedestrian accessibility and public transit, perhaps some greenways to allow for safe animal movements, etc).

I’ve noticed that for a bunch of folks, solarpunk is the aesthetic or at least it’s defined by the visual art, so I think the kind of utopian star trek skyscrapers and the tree-covered roofs are kind of distracting from the more solutions-oriented stuff.

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

It’s good to know there are others who feel this way. I’ve been feeling like I’m just not optimistic enough or don’t have enough solutions to offer to write solarpunk. My attempts at it often look more like rural cyberpunk with environmental rage or postapocalyptia with less rugged individualism than usual. I think I have an tenancy to bring a little too much mil-scifi to what’s supposed to be an upbeat genre. It’s hard to find markets for that.

Visual art is easier, I can show off concepts I want to be included in solarpunk without having to build a plot that fits them and the ethos of the genre.

Have you read The Postman? It’s not solarpunk but it has a surprising number of overlapping themes.

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

Lately I’ve been thinking about how a city would look if you could take up street and sidewalk, plant trees, and keep just a bike path through the middle. The logistics challenges (maintaining access to buried infrastructure/protecting them from roots, and making sure vehicle-based emergency services like firetrucks and ambulances can get everywhere, handicapped people have options/access everywhere) are keeping me busy but I have a couple ideas for photobashes of solarpunk streets to try out eventually.

JacobCoffinWrites, 10 months ago

I’m so glad! Always happy to talk about woodworking/general DIY stuff if you have any questions. Or if you want any ideas on getting started, advice on tools or where to find them, etc, I’m happy to yammer on about it.

Either way, I’ll keep posting stuff. I’ve got a mid-century desk almost fixed and ready to give away, and all the cast iron parts from one of those park benches, just need to fabricate a replacement wood seat and back because the old ones rotted. Once I can get the desk out of my workshop I’ll have a lot more space (until I find another project to take it up).

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

Sure, I’ve never written a carpentry how-to but I’ll try to organize this into a basic minimum -to-get-it-done and a what-you’ll-want-after-doing-the-minimum-a-couple-times version:

So for a project like this one, you’re going to need the following tools (these will also be good fundamentals for most basic projects):

The short list (the advice I generally got was start with basic tools, learn what capabilities you’re missing out on, add tools as you get more into it.)

• Tape Measure
• Square
• Screw Gun (my family uses this phrase for a hand drill that goes both forward and reverse, older ones from like the 60s only went forward, I have one of them too)
• Drill bits (any time you’re working with pine near the edge of the piece, or oak at all, you want to pre-drill the holes. Otherwise the screw will use its wedge-like shape and the power of the inclined plane to split the wood)
• Screw bits (there are some jobs, like fancy furniture or wood paneling, flooring, where nails are better, but screws are generally way more useful - they hold better and you can remove them without trashing the wood around them. before driving a screw, if you’re using a Philips bit, poke just the bit into the hole and run it, creating a sort of pocket for the head of the screw so it doesn’t split the piece)
• Saw (there are lots of saws for lots of jobs, definitely start with hand saws and pick up more as you decide generally what capabilities you want. This project is a bit more advanced because you’re cutting up plywood and if you’re following the plan, ripping boards lengthwise. A table saw would be ideal for that but they’re a bit intimidating, bulky, and expensive. I used a skillsaw, same blade but portable. I also used a band saw when I cut the side vents, because it could turn to remove more material, and a bunch of hand saws.)
• Bar clamps (these are fantastically useful, and when you need them, it’s usually urgent) -box cutter / razor knife - (these are kind of just good for everything, I do most of my carving with them because I’m a haaaaaack) -sand paper (always sand with the grain of the wood and start with rougher grits (lower numbers) and work towards finer grits (higher numbers)

If you’re ready to really sweat for it, this could probably get you a bat house, it could definitely do basic bookshelves, or other furniture projects. TBH the big bat house might be a bit more advanced than a beginner project because of all the baffles inside and because the joints need to be tight. I might post a birdhouse, the traditional ‘hello world’ of carpentry at some point.

To do things the way I did, you’ll want:

• A rotary tool/Dremel. (Again, fantastically useful, especially when you need to do something that should be simple but isn’t like cut away material inside an awkward spot)
• A bandsaw -A skillsaw
• A belt sander (I’d recommend this for your first power tool if you don’t have any, it was the first I was allowed to use as a child because it’s compatibly safe - it’ll only remove some skin, rather than entire fingers, before you realize you messed up.)
• A drill press (I didn’t use it much for this project but very much recommend one)

I’ll come back in a bit and do a more in-depth how-to, let me know if this is a good level of detail and if you have any questions

JacobCoffinWrites, 9 months ago

With this bat house all the pieces need to be stained, so I had to fabricate all the individual parts first, before I could start assembly (sometimes I make the parts as I go).

I started by finding plywood in the specific thicknesses, 1/2 inch and 3/8ths inch. Because I was working with old scrap, I found the straightest sides and measured everything from there. I like to measure six or more different points, use my level as a straight edge to draw the line, check that it’s square, then measure to a couple different spots on that line to make sure it’s in the correct spot. A friend I helped with a project jokingly rewrote the saying as measure twice, cut never, never stop measuring. I used the skillsaw to cut the plywood pieces to size, making sure to keep the blade on the outside of my lines. You could do this with a hand saw but it would take awhile. I then measured the pieces to make sure they were correct.

I measured 3" in from the top and sides of the baffles and drew lines parallel to the top and sides. Then I used thos to figure out how to position 1 1/2" diameter circles so their tops and sides were 3" from the edges. I used a hole saw (add that to the list) and the drill press to cut passage holes through the baffles. You can use a hole saw with a screw gun but they holesaws have a lot more friction and leverage so they have a lot more torque than a regular drill bit. That means if they catch hard and don’t want to cut, the screw gun or work can try to spin instead. Using a drill press eliminates one option and gives me better leverage to hold the work by.

Next I used the Dremel to cut slots into the plywood for the bats to climb. Later on, I used the skillsaw with the blade mostly retracted instead. Either one seemed fine. You could use a table saw for the same task. Without those, I think you’d have to use a knife or try to score it with a hand saw which would be difficult. This step took a lot of time, you need to do both sides of the baffles, and the inside of the front and back.

Next I started the spacers between the baffles. I ignored the instructions to cut a good board lengthwise and just dug up lots of small scraps and sanded them on the belt sander until they were 3/4" on at least one direction (which would be the distance between the baffles). I didn’t worry about getting the length right yet, just made sure there was enough for when I did assembly.

To fabricate the two sides, I found a pine board that was the correct width, measured out the angle I think using a little angle measure thing I found in a free stuff pile (you could use a protractor or printed paper template) and cut the diagonal which would become the top using a hand saw. I also cut one horizontally to bring the length down so they matched. I always try to check each board and identify the worst spots so I can put them in the part that gets cut off, if possible.

I ran it through a laser cutter at a makerspace for fun, but thats not necessary.

Then I cut the side vents. I used a hand saw to cut the horizontal parts of the cutout (the top and bottom), then used a band saw to cut in diagonally from one, curving to level out along what would become the vertical part of the cutout. Then I repeated the process going the other way to get a nice rectangular cutout.

You could also do this part using a hand saw to cut lots and lots of horizontal cuts, forming thin fins you can snap off to remove them. Or you could cut the top and bottom with the hand saw and use the Dremel with a cutting wheel to cut the vertical.

I cut the roof to length with a hand saw.

I stained everything on the inside of the house with water-based stain. Normally I use oil based stain, I think it works better, but it offgasses fumes for awhile and that would be bad for the bats. Normally I put stain on using paper towels, old takeout napkins, etc, but with all the slots cut, I found it was easier to use a brush. Normally I save my brushes for urethane (a friend would grind her teeth if she heard this whole process) because I don’t like cleaning them, but with water based stains they clean up with soap and water. Definitely easier for a beginner. So I guess add paint brushes to the list too.

I did the outside with oil-based stain using my usual method.

The actual assembly was fairly quick, kind of like building something from a kit because I didn’t have to stop and fabricate parts too much. I stood the two sides on the table, one front-up one front-down. The front-down one I laid a thin line of caulking on. Then took the back plate, faced it front-down, and I lined it up with that edge lined up well with the front-down side. I pre-drilled a hole, changed bits, chamfered the hole using the but, and drove in a screw. I repeated that process down that side. Then I flipped the other side, caulked the back, lined it up, and repeated the process. That was the hard part, especially working solo, trying to keep everything balanced. I flipped it over, put the front plate on to check the fit, and noticed that the sides were angled outwards and wouldn’t have a good fit for the front plate. I grabbed a bar clamp and squeezed them together so until they lined up correctly. Then the fun part. I added some spacers along the inside of the walls, trying to get the best use of the available length. I cut them as necessary and used short screws to attach them to the back. Then I dropped in a baffle, screwed it to the spacers. Picked and cut more spacers, attached them. The next baffle didn’t fit well so I used the belt sander to sand one edge and make it fit. If I hadn’t, it would have caused the sides to spread, and would have acted as a fulcrum if I tried to pull the sides together later. Once it fit I screwed it in place. More spacers, next baffle for a test fit. This one seemed bowed, it didn’t leave enough space for the bats to go between it and the front, so I sanded down the spacers a bit, until it seemed good. Then I put those together.

Then I put the front plate on. I actually had to clamp it more to get a good fit because it the sides had still spread. I screwed one side to the front so they lined up well, used the clamps to pull the sides together, and screwed the front to the other side. Then I did the lower front panel the same way.