Swift nest cups in MDF (fibreboard)

Contributed by Lyndon Kearsley

Having read Dick Newell's pieces on nest cups (concaves) and armed with his excellent technical drawings, I decided to try making nest cups using left over off-cuts of 2 cm thick MDF. I cut it up into 12.5 cm squares and marked up the centers using converging diagonals. Turning the cups to 1.5cm deep on my lathe proved easy, and quite a quick job. I then angled the sides on the table saw and beveled the top outside edge with a hand plane. A later improvement was to round off the inside edge of the cup for added comfort.

I smeared wood glue around the rim and decorated with a few feathers donated by my chickens. Hopefully the ready and waiting nest box furniture will tempt some new tenants this year.

Caution: it is not a good idea to breath the dust from MDF, so if you try this, you should preferably do it outside and wear a mask.