Laser Cut Zip Tie Bird House (No Glue!)

*This project was a lot, a lot of work and cost me 1000 zip ties. Everyone who voted and help me get to the final thank you so much.*

This instructable unlike most of my others has been designed with one thing in mind 'ZIP TIE CHALLENGE' and wanting to make a more ambitious project than some of the tips entered so far. Zip ties being strong, flexible and inexpensive, and most important for me with this project, able to tie/attach items allowing me to produce a no-glue design. (Also because Tensol-12 is expensive)

For this project as soon as the contest was launched I straight away got to Amazon and order ten 100 packs of zip ties. The zip ties are all brown and 100 mm x 2,5 mm.

With the project I do plan on having a functional birdhouse and as such it is important that the zip ties look in place with a tree.

The next step is making the CAD design. The design I made did end up being small than I might of liked but due to the number of zip ties and size of acrylic available I went with the minimum size that a bird would nest in.

The design's size of hole changes what type of bird you want to home. 25 mm for blue, coal and marsh tits. 28 mm for great tits, tree sparrows and pied flycatchers. 32 mm for house sparrows and nuthatches. 45 mm for starlings.

Lastly you will need to include a gap in the inside floor so that there is drainage in the design, this is important if you want a safe birdhouse.

Next step is cutting out the design in acrylic on a laser cutter. You could also use a cnc or if you are very talented a Dremel and drill bit. Once the laser cutting is compleate you can move on to the next most time consuming step.

Time for zip ties, lots of zip ties. Using the laser cut holes I attached the decoration zip ties to all the sides. Next using tape I assembled to design and after which I used the last few zip ties to secure it all together.

Finally I added a chain of zip ties to hang it from. Then I found some bird's new home its home on a tree in my garden and were done.

*Thank You for reading this it was a lot of work and I only had a very short time to get this instructable out due to the bad delivery time for the zip ties.*