# Mausoleum Mailbox



## GhoulishCop (Sep 25, 2009)

I received a request for a how-to for a mailbox I designed in the shape of a mausoleum, and though I hadn't planned on making one when I began the project I did take some progress pictures along the way.

So I don't know if this can be considered a proper how-to, but you should be able to figure it out as it goes along.

The building is made out of 3/4" MDF plywood, rigid foam insulation, and 1/2" PVC pipe. All of the wood, inside and out, was coated with marine spar varnish, primer, 2 coats of Dry-Loc, paint, and sealed with a deck sealer. I figured if someone wanted to have this outside and used as a real mailbox it needed to be protected.

The first step was to lay out the two gabled ends of the building. The width of the side is 12" and the height is 16". I didn't do any fancy math work for figure out the rise and run, but rather eyeballed what I thought would be a good pitch for the roof, drew a line across the width of the wood that intersected the centerline and connected the points to make a triangle.










The back wall of the building is just a rectangle cut to size. The final width of it wall was 16" which was based on the mail slot opening size that would go in the front.

The front wall, with the mail slot was built out of stiles and rails to form a frame, rather than a solid piece with a hole cut out of it. The stiles (those are the vertical pieces) were 13" long by 1-1/2" wide; the rails (the horizontal ones) were 13" long, but the top one was 2" wide while the bottom one was 3".

The were then glued together with biscuits (a football-shaped piece of basswood inserted into a slot cut with a power tool call a biscuit jointer. I build a lot of boxes, cabinets, furniture, etc. so I have this specialized tool. A router with a slot-cutter bit could also be used to somewhat similar effect. Alternatively, a drill and dowels could be used just as well. And last, simple glue joints could also hold it together.

I then laid out where I wanted my biscuits to go, glued up all four sides, and clamped it together until it was dry. This is how it looked at that point.










The entire piece was then sanded smooth with a random orbital sander which effectively made the joint lines disappear.










It was then given a coat of spar varnish.










I next cut the two roof halves to size, but gave it a 3/4" overhang for the eaves. The only tricky part was figuring out the angle at the ridge line (the roof peak) but that turned out to be about 35 degrees, and cut both sides on my table saw. The roof parts were glued and nailed using a pneumatic nail gun, though regular nails or screws could have worked too.

One word of caution: when using screws on MDF, pre-drill all holes because MDF has a tendency to split. There are specialized screws for use in MDF, but pre-drilling works if you don't want to go out and buy them. I filled in the nail holes with a sawdust-glue mix made up on a piece of scrap wood.










Everything was then sanded smooth after the glue dried. You can usually work with the pieces after a few hours, but I like to give my glue a full day to cure before sanding or manipulating it in some way. So a lot of these things were actually going on simultaneously, i.e., I was cutting the roof pieces, etc. while waiting for the face frame to dry.

Part 2, next

Rich


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## GhoulishCop (Sep 25, 2009)

The next thing I built was the mail slot door. Again, it was a simple rectangle, but since MDF is a weak wood when it comes to screws and the like being drilled into it, I wanted the screws for the piano hinge to have something sturdier to bite into so I glued two 3/4" square lengths of wood to the bottom opening of the face frame and to the door itself.

This is a picture of the wood being glued up to the door, and then was sanded smooth when dry.










Since it was a mausoleum, I knew I needed a sarcophagus inside, so I built one out of 1/4" hardboard scraps that were simply glued up into a box. I don't have the dimensions on this, but it was about 9" long and 2" wide.










After that was sanded and treated with spar varnish, it got two coats of black paint. I then made a crude paper clay body to lay on top of it. I didn't care really what it looked like only so that its form was obvious because it then got draped in a Monster Mud sheet which ultimately was painted black as well and dry brushed. The whole thing was then glued into the middle of the mausoleum.




























Part 3, next

Rich


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## GhoulishCop (Sep 25, 2009)

The real tricky part was making the gabled portico I wanted over the mail slot. Not only do you have the angle of the roof to contend with but you have the two sides canted in towards each other and as the pile of scrap wood I have can attest, for the life of me I could not figure out the proper angles.

So in the end I cheated. Rather than use wood, I used rigid foam insulation. It allowed me to cut the pieces to an approximate angle and then sand it down quickly to the right slope. The pieces were then glued in place.










It actually got me to thinking, though, that perhaps the whole structure could have been made out of rigid foam insulation, particularly if it would be used more as decoration than as an actual mailbox. It would certainly be a heckuva lot lighter I know!

The frieze on the portico was also made out of foam and the Secret Repear victim's name was carved, though it wasn't added till the very end.



















Once it was all dry, I coated it in primer. Now it just so happened the primer I had on hand had been previously tinted purple so that's why it has a somewhat macabre look, though being a mausoleum, maybe that's not a bad thing!










I then made faux stone work out of scrap rigid insulation along the base of the building and glued it into place.










Part 4, next

Rich


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## GhoulishCop (Sep 25, 2009)

I cut out an oversized base whose ends would largely be covered by the stone and which would support the columns in front, making it approximately 15" x 16" in size.

Before gluing and nailing it into place I painted the interior of the mausoleum itself in two coats of black paint. Doing it before the base was put on made it a lot easier than doing it afterwards. It was then sealed with deck sealer.










While that was drying, I cut out four blocks to serve as the column base and top and cut two lengths of 1/2" PVC pipe to serve as the columns. The bottom one was slightly larger than the top simply for aesthetics.

I also got two 1/2" PVC connectors and cut approximately 1/4" off both ends to use a cap and base on the columns. Here they are being test fitted.










BTW, I forgot to mention, in addition to all the other coatings, the exterior (including the columns) was coated in two coats of Dry-Loc as well to give it both a stone look and extra weather protection. That's the white color in the photo above.

I painted the columns first before gluing them into place. I then glued the sarcophagus into place along with the frieze, and screwed the hinged mail slot door in place. A door pull was then added. The entire exterior was then painted and detailed using some dried herbs I had on hand.




























Because I was stricken ill just as the deadline for shipping was approaching I wasn't able to add some details that I had planned. I wanted gothic arch windows on either gabled end along with a door that would have been painted with a bronzed patina (you can see that I had added "stone" steps leading up to the door).

I had planned on making them out of foamboard and affixing them to the wood, and making rigid foam sills and lintels and gluing them in place. But in all I'm pleased with how it turned out though I might have changed the coloring to a slightly more gray look with whitewash aging had I more time.

Hope you like it too.

Rich


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## FRIGHTGUY (Sep 1, 2010)

That is awesome!! Thanks for the how too and pics!


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## Wildcat (Nov 3, 2007)

That's very cool.


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

Thanks for the how-to! This design could also be adapted to use as a birdhouse or feeder.


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## Fangs (Jun 6, 2006)

That is *awesome*!!! Thank you for sharing the how-to! If only our mailboxes weren't combined in a mailroom...... but..... This would be a perfect candy holder.....


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