Just found these pics on my camera and thought i'd post them for anyone interested. These cost around £180 at my local garden centre, so very rewarding to make one yourself for around £15-£20 in materials.
Cut out a base from exterior plywood or alternatively you could use solid redwood pine. Its best to use a few strips, so there is less chance of the boards warping. I mitred beads around the base to cover the end grain and then moulded it with my router.
Cut a square of 6mm external plywood the same size as the base. This will be used for the roof. Then screw in a centre post and screw the rafters in place. The rafters should have 45o angles and should be pre-drilled and screwed into place from underneath the ply. At the tops where they meet the centre post I pre-drilled and nailed into the post.
For the frame that the roof will sit on, I used some 40mm square timber, joined together with 8mm dowels and polyurethane glue. The frame should be smaller than the base to give a ledge around the frame.
I then put a curve on the top rails and used my router with a round cutter to make it a little more decorative.
To make the slate roof I measured them up and then cut them out with a grinder. To hold in place I used low modulus neutral cure silicone. Dont use **** silicone as it wont hold and the slates will come loose.
Put loads of silicone on the edges of the rafters and lay the slates onto it. Once it's gone off they will be hard to remove and it should be very strong. to stop them sliding down while the silicone set I used some masking tape to hold them in place.
Once the silicone is dry you should grind the tops of the slates to get them nice and flat. You could use some rough sandpaper and a sanding block, or a diamond sharpening stone.
To make these I used a 45o chamfer cutter in my router and a V-groove and rounded cutter for the inside cuts. You could do it with a table saw or even a plane and chisels if you don't have anything better.
To top it off I cut 2 pieces of pine and added a chamfer to one and shaped the other. Then pre-drilled through them both with a 4mm drill bit, and then drilled halfway through the top board with an 8mm drill bit. This then allows the spire to slot into the counter bored hole to finish it off.
To make the spire, I glued an 8mm dowel into the edge of some square timber. Then rounded the edges off with a plane to get it roughly rounded. I don't have a lathe, so I put the dowel into a drill and clamped it to my workbench, then rested a chisel on a block of wood. It worked surprisingly well
.
Silicone the dowel into the 8mm counter bored hole drilled earlier, to cover the screw.
That's pretty much it. Screw the frame to the roof, through the top rails and into the 6mm plywood. Then screw the base into the frame. I also added silicone to stop water ingress into the bottom of the frame legs.
This is the smaller one and a larger one I made in the background. I'm not happy with the colour of the stain so going to try and source some lighter, more transparent stain.
Here's a couple of pics of the larger bird table I made.
Next project will be a hexagonal roofed bird house
.
Cut out a base from exterior plywood or alternatively you could use solid redwood pine. Its best to use a few strips, so there is less chance of the boards warping. I mitred beads around the base to cover the end grain and then moulded it with my router.
Cut a square of 6mm external plywood the same size as the base. This will be used for the roof. Then screw in a centre post and screw the rafters in place. The rafters should have 45o angles and should be pre-drilled and screwed into place from underneath the ply. At the tops where they meet the centre post I pre-drilled and nailed into the post.
For the frame that the roof will sit on, I used some 40mm square timber, joined together with 8mm dowels and polyurethane glue. The frame should be smaller than the base to give a ledge around the frame.
I then put a curve on the top rails and used my router with a round cutter to make it a little more decorative.
To make the slate roof I measured them up and then cut them out with a grinder. To hold in place I used low modulus neutral cure silicone. Dont use **** silicone as it wont hold and the slates will come loose.
Put loads of silicone on the edges of the rafters and lay the slates onto it. Once it's gone off they will be hard to remove and it should be very strong. to stop them sliding down while the silicone set I used some masking tape to hold them in place.
Once the silicone is dry you should grind the tops of the slates to get them nice and flat. You could use some rough sandpaper and a sanding block, or a diamond sharpening stone.
To make these I used a 45o chamfer cutter in my router and a V-groove and rounded cutter for the inside cuts. You could do it with a table saw or even a plane and chisels if you don't have anything better.
To top it off I cut 2 pieces of pine and added a chamfer to one and shaped the other. Then pre-drilled through them both with a 4mm drill bit, and then drilled halfway through the top board with an 8mm drill bit. This then allows the spire to slot into the counter bored hole to finish it off.
To make the spire, I glued an 8mm dowel into the edge of some square timber. Then rounded the edges off with a plane to get it roughly rounded. I don't have a lathe, so I put the dowel into a drill and clamped it to my workbench, then rested a chisel on a block of wood. It worked surprisingly well
.
Silicone the dowel into the 8mm counter bored hole drilled earlier, to cover the screw.
That's pretty much it. Screw the frame to the roof, through the top rails and into the 6mm plywood. Then screw the base into the frame. I also added silicone to stop water ingress into the bottom of the frame legs.
This is the smaller one and a larger one I made in the background. I'm not happy with the colour of the stain so going to try and source some lighter, more transparent stain.
Here's a couple of pics of the larger bird table I made.
Next project will be a hexagonal roofed bird house
.
. I'll be adding a curve to the top rails later. 
