Santa’s Mailbox. Send letters to the North Pole!
Here’s a cute project to kick off the holiday season! This mailbox would be fun for kids to send letters to Santa, or you can get creative and come up with other uses for it! Either way it’s a fairly simple project. The only tricky part is cutting the bevels to create the curved top.
I began by cutting thirteen boards to equal lengths. These will be the slats that make up the sides and curved top. I made a few extra just in case I screwed something up.
Cut the bevels
This part might be a little tricky. You need to cut 11.25° bevels as accurately as possible. I recommend using a digital angle gauge. It’s magnetic and sticks right to the side of your saw blade for precise adjustments.
- Seven of the slats get the bevel on two long edges.
- Two slats are beveled on only one edge.
- The final four slats have no bevels.
Gluing together the slats
There is no easy way to clamp these together, but you don’t really need to clamp them since this project won’t be subjected to a lot of stress. I like to use Weldbond for this kind of application. It creates a very strong bond without any clamping. Wood glue will work too. I added a strip of masking tape along each seam for a little extra support.
I found it was easiest to take my time and work in sub-assemblies, gluing two slats at a time, letting them dry, then gluing together these sub-assemblies.
Here you can see the two slats that are beveled on only one edge. Make sure the non-beveled edge is flat and square to the table. If they aren’t, you can slightly adjust and re-cut the bevels.
Then glue on the final two pairs of straight-edged boards.
After the entire thing had dried, I sanded the top slats to create more of a rounded curve.
Making the door and end
The end piece and the door extend beyond the curve of the mailbox. To draw a line for cutting, I used the mailbox assembly as a template and a washer as a guide for my pencil. This worked out great.
I cut these out on my band saw then rounded over the ends with my router.
Next, I glued the mailbox to the base and attached the back.
I like to “pre-install” hinges on my projects, then remove them for painting. I used 2″ T-hinges.
I found a magnetic cabinet latch and used it to hold the the door shut.
I cut out the flag on a 1/4″ thick board and attached it to the mailbox with a single screw to act as a hinge.
I glued on this little block to stop the flag when it swings into its down position.
I cut out a finger pull and glued it in place.
After spray painting all the pieces, including the hinges, I re-attached the door.
I used my photo-transfer method to create outlines for the lettering and then painted them with white chalk paint.
