Lewis Mailbox Decorations – Take 1

As you can see in this picture, our mailbox is to the right side of the bottom of our driveway. (You can see the greeter robot and one-and-a-half owls in the background).

We have a lot of fun making these metal decorations for our mailbox. :0) Over the years we’ve changed from relatively simple designs to more complex ones, some of which have 3-dimensional effects.  (My husband is trying to figure out how we can add movement to these without having motors or batteries.)

We create them from 4×8 metal sheets. We have a CNC setup with a huge table. We lay the sheet metal on the table.  We use a computer to create the design. (usually we choose a design we like from the net. My husband uses computer programs to create the G-Code that the computer uses to translate into directions for a plasma torch to cut. We happily watch as the torch follows the computer directions, cutting out our design. (Sometimes this is pretty grim – with endless things not working correctly. We’ve learned to do a trial run on the cutout – without the torch running – to be more sure we won’t be wasting expensive metal.)

There are lots of steps involved in each decoration, but mainly the cut out design is welded to the attachment bars. We use an overhead projector to transfer the important parts of the design to the metal we’ve cut out. I then paint the piece on both sides. We spray the piece with polyurethane to protect it from the weather as much as possible.

Each design is approximately 2-1/2 feet high with varying widths. We include an attachment bar the design is welded to, and then we have a bar with holes in it. We attach each design to the mailbox with nuts and bolts. We change the decoration approximately twice per month.

My husband hung a square metal tube suspended from the ceiling in the shop to hold our finished decorations. He makes a hanger for each design based on how long it is so that we can easily walk under the group of decorations. This shows an old picture of the holder. It’s almost completely full now, and most of these decorations have been replaced with more complicated ones.

The decoration at the beginning of this post is Snoopy and Woodstock, each carrying a U.S. Flag to celebrate Independence Day.

We’ll change to another decoration on the 15th.