Читать книгу The Young Mechanic - James Lukin - Страница 7

Fig. 13.

You have now to make the tray, to slide into the space left in the front below the bottom front rail. This is to hold sifted sand, and is made loose, because it requires to be taken out and cleaned every day (Fig. 13). It is merely a flat thin board (one-eighth of an inch will be quite thick enough), with a strip nailed on, or glued on, in front, to fit the space left for it, and other smaller strips glued on all round it, so as to form a very shallow tray or drawer. The small strips can be glued on flat upon the top of the board, but to fasten on the front, you must first glue on a similar strip to those round the sides, and just such as you made the pillars of, but not quite so thick, and then glue, or nail on with very small brads, the front piece, nailing or gluing it to this strip. This will make it very firm, and will do well enough for your first cage. A, Fig. 13, shows a part of the drawer, C is the front, and D the strip it is glued to. The handle of this drawer or tray is to be made of wire, unless you can find some little knob or other that will do. If you succeed in making this cage, you will have learned a good deal, because, although not really difficult, it requires care and consideration; and if you are in a hurry, you will split the wood, or make it crooked, or cut the pieces too short. It should be neatly painted in oil-colour—green is a favourite colour—but the top boards may be red, and the wires should be left clean and bright, because the bird often pecks at them. If you paint the inside of the woodwork, it should be white.

I have not here put any feeding-boxes, or seed-drawers, because glasses are the best; but you will see two holes (Fig. 11), one inch across, in the lower side pieces, for the bird to put its head through to get at the seed and water. A bit of wire, forming half a hoop, supports the glasses or trays. These ought to be cut with a centrebit—a tool you have not, and the carpenter had better do it for you. Here is the cage complete (Fig. 14). You can do without making holes in the sides, if you put two wires longer than the rest, and bend them, as you see at B in Fig. 13, before putting them in place.

Fig. 14.