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New mailbox time....any creative ideas??

dkmc

Diamond
All those bills have worn the bottom sheet metal thin!....oh...and rust is taking its toll too...



Wondering about maybe some sort of DIY plain Stainless box, maybe a theme....It a Job shop business not a home.
Anybody even seen a Lathe or mill shaped mailbox?
Or a Lathe or mill USED as a mailbox?
Used to be a house in town, fairly large 6cyl diesel engine at curbside w/standard USPS mailbox bolted to the valve cover... :rolleyes:

Any pics of your (or your favorite) custom mailbox and any ideas......lets see them and hear about it.

dan k
 
Gotta love google image search! Here's a few sites Mailbox site


url
This one's bound to discourage any potential theives from considering your house! :D

tractor1.jpg
There's a better tractor one on the site but it is just plain too big.

some other funny ones there too. Why not just go to an auction and buy some sort of cheap off beat brand milling machine and paint the ways grey or something. Perhapse for a machine shop, see if you can scrounge up an old large Micrometer. Like one of 4fters or make your own, and mount the box a top. Sounds like a fun idea.
 
How about a roomy automatic transmission houseing? Gut it and renstall the pan. Clearance and install the front pump housing on a hinge. Cover the torque coverter hole with a fake safe dial.
 
Do the Highways board use Gatso cameras? Good source of armour plated, pre-painted (grey or yellow) boxes as a starting point. Usually available at the roadside, only need an oxyacetyene torch on the back of your truck to collect a few in one night! :D ;)
gatsonsign.jpg
 
I have always thought that the crank,flywheel, and pistons from a D john deere with the pistons pointed straight up and the mailbox fastened to the piston that is at top dead center. An even more custom idea is to have someone paint something on the flywheel that touches your fancy!

Dale Nelson
 
A while ago I remember reading a post where a horizontal mill mailbox was mentioned- but don't ask me what the post's topic was (it wasn't mailboxes).
I knew a guy who fabbed one out of 3/8" plate to foil the mailbox baseballers. He did a good job making it look just like the large rural boxes. Don't know if anyone ever tried it with the bat but they would have been in for a surprise...
Andy
 
I've always used a standard mailbox mounted on an inverted "L" shaped pipe/post. The kids hit it with a bat and the post swivels in the ground. They think they have damaged it so they then move on to the neighbors mailbox.

I have read that if you put a heavy mailbox unit at the road and someone hits it, you may be liable. Not sure, but that is what I heard.-Jerald
 
I have read that if you put a heavy mailbox unit at the road and someone hits it, you may be liable. Not sure, but that is what I heard
That is exactly what is wrong with this modern world. I live in Scotland and a while back an old guy in Aberdeen was taken to court and fined for greasing his roan pipe (gutter pipe?) His home was a second storey flat (apartment?) and it had been broken into on two or three occasions, each time the thief had gained access by climbing up the roan pipe and getting in through a window. The old guy decided enough was enough and got a ladder and greased the pipe from one storey up. The local council heard about it and told the guy to remove the grease, he refused. He was taken to court and fined, reason he was told to remove it was a potential thief could slip and injure or kill him/herself. I say good!!!!!! the more thieves that get killed the better


Hood
 
the very old Bridgeport columns had a swinging door in the side of them.
Now you've hurt my feelings Matt, my Bridgie is not 'very old', has a door, and isn't available for a mail box!! ;) (1976)

I was thinking about this subject yesterday myself - my latest copy of "Torque Meter" magazine arrived and got wet on one end! :mad: Winters coming, I need a mail box extension...

A few years ago my box got kung-fu kicked, so it is now mounted on 6mm plate, I wish some idiot would try it again.

Hood, I have seen plenty of "anti-scaling" paint used on walls in London - it looked like black grease to me. (I didn't "see" it close up, mind, just noted in passing!)
 
the only way you held liable is if you had it too close to the road. get it aproved by the post master and you will be ok.
a few years back we had a rash of mail box baseball. the shop i was working in at the time made up mail boxs out of 8"x8"x 1/2 tubing. the post master approved it. a week later there was a broken bat by the one box. and the game was stopped.
 
My dad had a problem with kids/baseball bats and his mailbox...as well as the occaisional snow plow. His post is a rail raod RAIL.....not a tie but a rail and his box is a piece if 10" steel pipe welded to the top of the rail. His old box and post would last 1 maybe 2 years.......this one is about 10 yrs old.
 
Peter, your '76 Bpt has the swinging door?

Wow, I thought that was a 50s feature...

I've seen some interesting mailboxes in rural areas of the upper midwest that were cantilevered from "way back"....what I thought this was for was to prevent the fast moving highway plows from simply blowing the mailbox over in a wash of snow.

One was a "ship's chain" (showing ignorance of terms here) but the links were roughly 1-1/4" round stock, probably 6-8" length each, with the center bar that keeps the link from collapsing under tension. The links were welded together into a nice long gentle arc, suspending that seemingly tiny mailbox out in midair.
 
Matt,
My 'mailbox' BP was made in the UK by Adcock Shipley, sounds like they kept the door until a later date.

BPs in NZ seem to have come from the UK, later ones maybe from Singapore, not sure about the current offerings (but they are available again after a few years with no local agency).

I have seen some well made plastic mail boxes around for the last few years, I think they are probably designed to be 'bat proof' - we have those idiots here to.

Also need to be explosive proof - friends box was destroyed by some industrial-sized fireworks last Guy Fawkes night!
 
Here's an idea, instead of waisting a few hundred
hours or bucks, on some work of art, why not
just buy one of them $14.99 mail boxes from
your local Home Depot store. You know, the nice
one with the tractor painted on the side. :D

And then spend all that meaningfull time with
your wife or girlfriend, spend the money you
save and take her out for a " night on the town".
She'll make you feel more satisfied, and with
the money you still have left, she won't complain
next time you buy tools from ebay.
Jamie
 
I suggest a mailbox with a nice substantial post and a sturdy top plate. I used a length of '135' railroad rail that was eight feet long. For a top plate; I cut the cutting edge of a D9 dozer in half. That left me with a 12"x24"x1" slab to weld to the top of the post. The beveled cutting edges are just the ticket for customizing those pickup trucks that are playing 'mailbox bingo'. Make sure you secure the post firmly. I suggest a yard of concrete, topped off with a foot of dirt on top. That way tou can grow flowers or grass. Paint is the secret to a good mailbox. My post is painted hugger orange and it suits me. Pretend you are planning a party and come up with a good 'theme' for a mailbox. I have a friend that has his painted Brockway grey and he uses the ball crank from an old Bridgeport for a door handle. His flag is the drill lever handle and he took the time to trim it up just like a 'J' Bridgeport. There is a house in Chickentown that has a minature drag line mailbox. The cab is the mailbox and the counterweight is the door. That retired dragline mechanic made the box twenty years ago and it still is on station. He keeps it that way with a 300 Savage and regular maintenance.

My mail box is mailman approved. The postmaster is not the one I want to keep happy. The height is determined by the mailman. Always give a few feet of extra space so the mail carrier can drive up easily. Give the mail carrier a dead blow hammer to break the ice off the box and gain easy access. If she uses the hammer on everyone else's mailbox too, so what? Keep the snow cleared from around the box, even though there is usually two feet of snow on the road. Always keep a cold can of diet Dr. Pepper in the box on Saturday summer mornings. Whatever you come up with, it will be 'approved'.

As for liability; I am liable to remove the dust from the barrel of my favorite M1 if somebody picks on my little mail box. I suggest you keep the loader fueled up and a hole dug. A shovel will not do. It takes too much work to dig a Plymouth size hole with a little irrigation shovel. The wife unit also may get cranky, while holding the light for you too.
 
Well, there was a guy one time on rcm (and here
my memory's a tad fuzzy, I think it was Mike
Graham) who got tired of the town taking out
his mailbox when they plowed the road.

So he made one with a steel I beam as the
vertical, sunk into concrete. I seem to recall
the beam was about as wide as the mailbox.

But the mailbox was a bit oversized, it was
a standard one that was potted inside concrete,
inside an 'extra-large' version that he made.
The round part was a piece of well casing I
think and the flat sides were 1/4 inch steel
plate. Basically he welded up a extra large
box, poured it partly full of concrete, and
then stuck the smaller one inside that at the
right level till it set up.

I think there were some pieces of RR track
welded into a cross brace at ground level on
the beam, too.

Anyway it had the desired effect, the town guy
doing the plowing with a road grader clobbered
the post one storm. Now I never knew this,
but the blade on a road grader has shear bolts
and, yep, the post of mailbox was pretty
much immovable. The bolts sheared and the blade
fell off the grader.

Now I never did get the *entire* story about this
but somehow the town strongarmed the poor guy
into paying for the repairs, and made him take
out the mailbox. There was a great hue and cry
about that at the time, seemed darned unfair.
But he did it, so there may have been some kind
of back-story behind all that.

As for me, there's no need to worry about cars
hitting my mailbox, it's up on the porch. The
mailman just walks up the path and puts the bills
and junk mail right in the box.

Jim
 
My suggestion would be a micrometer mailbox. The mail box would be the anvil(?) end of the mike and the vernier body could be made of pipe. THe arched frame would be a great place to paint your company name. Sorry I don't know the proper names of micrometer parts, and I am to lazy to look them up this morning.....

MIKE.jpg
 








 
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