Compost Bins Completed

At the beginning of the summer I designed two possible compost bins based on designs in the book "Let it Rot". Last weekend I finally finished the one I chose to complete (the model with boars on four sides, which won on the merits of hiding the pile from our neighbors).

This is what we had before:

This is what we have now:

There are a lot of nuts and bolts in this beast:

And especially in the middle posts:

The bins look great and are functional, but given the choice to start over I would definitely go with the other design. All the hardware on this design was very expensive, as was the 1 x 6 lumber. The other design would have been easily as functional and because the floor and three sides are made with 2 x materials and cheaper connectors it would have been much less expensive and easier to construct.

But this design taught me quite a bit: I a built a jig for drilling the holes in the posts an equal distance apart, that worked perfectly except that I measured incorrectly and had the holes about 1/8" further apart than on the slats. It wasn't so much of a problem with the outer sides, where the bolts go through one post and one slat, but it was impossible to get through two posts and one slat. I ended up bolting through one hole and drilling out the second hole for each slat once the sides were mostly assembled. Also, did I mention that there are a LOT of nuts, bolts, and washers? And on the center side I was so distracted by the puzzle of getting the bolts in, that I installed the two back posts upside down. So I was able to take out and reinstall those 12 bolts twice. Fun.