Hey Eddie,
The WD boxes I built from the LSU plans are 24" tall overall. Most of the plans I encountered were similar. I used the full 11.250" width of the 1 x 12" pine boards on the sides. This was one of the reasons I selected 1 x 12 pine. Easy handling, minimal cutting. Oh yeah; it was on sale. When I was a kid, I got interested in and involved with furniture quality woodworking. This, and my perfectionist attitude, contribute to my overkill habit. These nesting boxes follow suit. If you look at Myron's boxes, the pic with the owl, it's plywood. You could make them out of OSB if you wanted to; the animal won't care. There is one consideration that I did discover. They weigh alot. If it was correctly dried cedar, it would be alot lighter. This combined with the longevity of cedar makes me wonder "after the fact" if I should have just paid the extra for the cedar and been done with it. Oh well, I have also been known to spend a buck to save 50 cents.
To me, at this point in my life, I endeavor to build things correctly with the low/no maintainence objective. I am hoping that the time I spent constructing and finishing these nesting boxes will last a good 10 - 15 years, requiring only nest cleanout.
So, back to the construction. I used polyurethane glue (Gorilla glue) and put the pneumatic finish nail gun to work with 2.5" x 15 ga. galv finish nails.
I have never witnessed a wood duck entering a nesting box, but one of my neighbors has them and he says that it is borderline comical. He says that they fly nearly full speed directly into the hole. I gotta see this one. (maybe Norm or some of the PB'ers can fill us in).
Right now I am working on a batch of wren/chickadee houses. The bat houses are on the radar (or is that sonar?) I read in more than one place that they consume upwards of 1000 mosquitoes per night. Blue bird houses are comin' soon, too. I am going to go with the Peterson design. Mallard nesting tubes are also on the list.
