Spent much of the weekend on project using you guys’ suggestions for mailboxes. The 2 mailbox and concrete suggestions were just too elegantly simple to use <G> , plus needed something that locked due to a few mail thefts lately in the neighborhood. Mail lady did a double take when she deliverd yesterday late PM.
For the safety conscious, note that on the one pix the street has a 25 mph sign (all you see is the back) and a barricade just the other side of the driveway so the mailbox is not a hazard for innocent collision – also have not had any ice this year, seldom get it.
Paint job is just the primer and fluorescent blue until I can do a proper paint and reflector job.
Made of scrap in my backyard pile – 3/16 to 1/2 inch plate and some 8 inch channel, weighs about 800 pounds. Got the simplex lock for $2 a pound at a surplus store, probably the most fragile part even if only 1/2 inch is exposed.
The same creosoted post has been there for 30 years. Got hit by a burgular 15 years ago when they were surprised by a neighbor- jumped in their car and screeched out with lights off about 1 AM, left oil, tran fluiid, and brake fluid on the rock and street, but never caught – county did pull a car out of a nearby ravine a few years later <G>
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Had a brick mailbox in Louisiana, about the same size as yours. Came home from a week visiting Grandma one New Years Eve, had a couple of drinks with the wife, went to sleep.
Got up the next morning, walked out, got paper, walked back in, realized something wrong, noticed mailbox knocked over. Found note from deputy to call him when I woke up.
He came over, said he was driving down the left lane of a four lane road outside the neighborhood, pulled up next to some kids in a car. They jumped when they saw the deputy, quickly hit the brakes and made a right into our neighborhood. Deputy got curious and decided to pull them over. They ran, and ran up onto and out of the deputy's lawn. "I got mad then," he said.
The chase continued up the road to our house which was in a curve. The car knocked over our mailbox and missed a huge oak tree by 6 inches. Car right front quarter totaled, he only made it another block before the rim/wheel gave out completely.
Turned out the kid had 'borrowed' the car from his grandfather. Grandfather came by, apologized, and said he would pay for any damage. I got a $2 bag of sand and some beer, four of us stood the mailbox back up and leveled it. Only damage I could find was some blue paint from the car. I left the paint there and never looked the grandfather back up for the sand or the beer.
Any of you entrepreneurs out there see a niche as yet unfilled by modern manufacturing?Half of good living is staying out of bad situations.
The other...proper application of risk.
Rez: In another site/thread read while researching mailboxes, one of the mfg reps that advertize with a pix of a broken ball bat said that a 1/2 ton mailbox would have to retail for $4 grand. If I counted my time the same as my desk job, it would be close to that.
Rolling on the floor, guy. You are covered unless the culprits are like you, that thing can take a serious hit.
Hey come spring, Flame that sucker.
The mail lady will never miss it.