So some time back I built a box for deliveries and parcels. The object being to hide any deliveries from passers by. While the box does not lock, you also don’t see boxes sitting on my front porch or driveway. Kind of like locks keeping honest people honest. A thief would need to actually walk up to my house, open the box, just to see if a package is there.
Oh, and I have surveillance so that’s something too. 🙂
Anyway it took a couple weeks to train the delivery guys on how to use the box, but for the last 9 months or so we’ve been golden. Here’s some photo’s of the build process and finished product:
so… I made one horrible mistake. when I stained and sealed the box, I did so on the outside only. Neglecting the fragile inside area’s. it also has a flat top which pooled water between the “X” trim, which WAS sealed since it was on the exterior. So that pooled water would seep through any nail holes or gaps in the Spar finish accelerating the damage. Further, when I built it, I used a glue & nail gun construction technique that yields a box that’s one solid unit. biggest problem is I couldn’t take it back apart to seal the innards… This one only lasted about 9 months before it became these:
nasty stuff. The UPS guys were still delivering our packages in it though. haha… So last week I started another box, this one with a few design changes. First and most important was a slightly over-sized “Sloped” top. I initially wanted to shingle it but that would of made it much too heavy to lift, and you kind of have to pamper the delivery guys. I also bought a spray gun to more easily apply more layers of the Spar sealer I use. this time I not only sealed the outside, but the inside too. Copiously. It also comes apart into 5 pieces instead of being one contiguous glued box. Here’s a few pics of the new box:
this will work better I hope. Of course, one other design flaw that I purposely carried forward was the build materials. I used 5/8″ plywood. It would have been better to use hardwood but that’s way more fab work than I wanted at this juncture. If this one fails I’ll be welding a box up from 1″ square tube steel and plate it with 22 gauge steel sheets, of course I’ll have to send it to the local body shop to have it either powder coated, or even better just have it bed-liner-ed… whatever that stuff is called.