A mailbox for New England weather

Like many New Englanders @CO and I have to watch our mailbox do its best to stand up against the harsh snow each winter season. We live at the bottom of a small hill and each time it snows, the plows slam massive amounts of snow against our mailbox. Thankfully, our mailbox is far enough off the road that the plows themselves can't accidentally hit it, but the wave of snow can still reach the box. This stresses the connection between the box and the post and slowly weakens it over time.

This is how our mailbox looked before we started this project. As you can see, it wouldn't likely stand up to one more season.

So we designed a mailbox that hangs on a chain and pivots around a home-made ball joint where it meets the post. We've seen hanging mailboxes in the past when we visited Maine, so we were confident that this could work.

So we jumped into SOLIDWORKS for Makers and modeled a few ideas. Once we decided on a style, we took a measured drawing of it to our local post office to get their approval.

Then @CO used MakeByMe to work out the details of the build and get the material list we needed to we head to the lumber store.

With materials in hand, we started building the flower box and post. We got to practice cutting half lapse joints and notches, working with cedar shingles, and using purchased parts to fabricate a unique ball joint.

The mailbox is very stable against front to back forces, so when our mail carrier opens and closes the box, it doesn't sway side to side. When large side forces are applied to the box it sways out of the way and then returns to its resting position.

We are really happy with the design and are excited to see how it performs this winter. Of course, we do acknowledge that this design doesn't make sense for many other parts of the world. If you live in a place with great weather, or a place with really high winds, there's likely nothing better than the classic mailbox post design. For us, though, given the specifics of where we live, and the weather we face, this design feels great!

Be sure to check out the full episode to see how the project came together.

https://youtu.be/27jGa7u3lNk

 

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