Getting Creative ?

A few weeks ago I had a go at making a nest box from a chestnut log, I had seen a guy I think it was on YouTube making one with a froe which is a kind of upside down axe and he cleaved it on all sides (bashed with mallet so it splits), cut out the middle and nailed it together, drilled the hole etc., well I had a go and failed miserably.
So I had a cunning plan and decided I could make one with my new chainsaw to cut instead of cleaving the timber.
First I found a Larch log around 3 foot cut it in half diagonally, which then gave me two potential boxes and bearing in mind this is a trial come prototype I gave it a go, if it don’t work its just fire wood, no loss.

Bird nestbox

I first I found a bit of 4 x 1 timber about 18 inch long, screwed this to the bottom, then screwed this to the log you can see it sitting on in the photo, which stops it from moving as I cut it.
Now to cut along the grain is different to cross cutting ,something I had found out earlier on when I built the main hide and so I bought a ” Ripping Chain ” which is designed for milling timber and is angled at 10 degrees instead of around 25 degrees and chips away at the grain, anyhow I then cut off each side freehand , no need for anything else as long has you have a good eye.
The middle, which is now waste gets a chunk of around 3 inch cut off the bottom which forms the base, making sense ?
Then I nailed the floor back in and nailed where I could around the box with 2 to 3 inch nails to make it solid.
Next stage was drill the hole, which is a mission unless you have a very powerful battery drill, I bought an old fashion bit & brace set after my first attempt ate my 2 batteries in one go, so did it the old fashion way.
Tip here is to drill at 10 mill hole first so the 28mm auger bit don’t dig in to much.
As I say still a prototype, so still fiddling with the design and hope to knock out 20 to put around the wood, but quite pleased so far, I have one up already and though looks big I think looks good, and very cheap.

Bird nestbox

You can see more from the top view and I just cut a slice of a larch stump for the roof and put a large screw in to hold.
The larch will last for years so I don’t need to use any preservative which is handy.
What do you think ? Looks better in the flesh.
Heres one sited