Hey Mister Postman

As requested by a couple of posters who missed some of my creations on the old forum, I have reproduced this one here.

I bought this replica George the sixth post box last year and thought I would have a go at making a copy of just the front to stick on another wall.

I started by making latex molds of the King’s initials and words on the front, but didn’t like the cypher (crown) that looks nothing like the real thing.

I found an old post box near where I live, but sadly not a G R VI, that had a nice cypher so I cleaned it and made a mold out of Fimo in an old tuna tin. I did get some odd looks from passers by whilst I was doing this.

I then filled the latex and Fimo molds with glass fibre resin.

Whilst these were setting I started on the front of the post box using a nice piece of hardwood reclaimed from an old wardrobe.

I drew round the outline of the replica that I had bought and cut out the basic shape for the new front.

Then I cut out the door and hole for the letters, as well as fabricating beading and the weather shield.

After gluing the castings from the molds, I gave it a coat of British Standard pillar box red.

Letters picked out in gold to signify the box is not in use. (White letters would denote it is still in use).

The white information plates are made from a sheet of stainless steel and painted hammerite white.

Close up of the information notices. I used a stencil to create the characters, and painted part of the wall behind in black to make it look like a hole in the wall.

Finished and installed on my garage wall where it can be seen from the dining room. The screws attaching it are hidden under the collection time notice. I had to fill in the cracks and paint the wall before mounting the box, something I had been meaning to do for ages.

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Love this, Fruitcake! Such imagination, its cracking! Also, interesting to read about the gold/white lettering to signify whether or not the letterbox is in use! :+1:

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That’s awesome! We have such talented members here :023:

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I absolutely adore that, Fruity.

Your talent amazes me, Fruitcake! :+1:

So clever! couldn’t you stick it on your front door for the postie to deliver mail to you? That would look so neat.

We have a composite front door, so it would have to go on a wall. Sadly we would then run the risk of theft or vandalism.
In addition, we wouldn’t be able to see if it was fixed to the front of the house unless we went out somewhere, whereas it can be currently be seen from our garden room at the back.

and not only that, but someone could mistake it for a official post box and post their mail in it :smiley: :smiley:

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OMG, Fruity, that is amazing! (are you reading this @Harbal? :wink: ). You must get so much fun out of all your creations.

Indeed I am. Fruitcake’s skill and creativity are truly amazing. :icon_eek:

That was so interesting,doing the renovation in such great details.
I shall show my Husband as he loves others skills as well as his own!..What a skill it is as well Fruitcake…Congrats on that.
Sad that you feel vandals could harm it though.
We all have our own post boxes outside of our homes here, and they are as far as I am aware not tampered with…
Obviously other areas that are built up could well be different to ours…

Now that is excellent craftsmanship!
You are good. Beautiful work. :heart:

I don’t blame him. I’d be weary also. Some people get pleasure out of destroying other peoples things and mailboxes is definitely one of them.

When we first moved to the country, we bought an adorable cow :cow2: mailbox :mailbox: which was destroyed within 2 days. From that moment we stuck with plain ordinary ones.

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Honestly…people leave all kinds of things about around here and it feels very nice that they are left alone…I know the crime rates for the whole Country are likely as bad as other Countries…I think fraud is big here…from reading up some years back,…

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There’s rarely ever any crime where we live or where we used to live. Most people are friendly and respectful of others. These were kids doing this. It’s called mailbox bashing. They travel down dirt roads in the middle of the night smashing mailboxes. Similarly to our Nicky Nicky Nine Doors I guess. :joy:

There are no mailboxes where we live which i actually prefer. All mail gets put into a locked box down the road and if it’s too big, gets delivered to the door.

Sorry Fruitcake. :innocent:

My thoughts exactly, especially as Fruitcake has gone to the trouble of putting “collection Times” on the front of his masterpiece.

I have enough wood to make one more. so I might try that out on the front of the house, but it will be attached to a blank wall with no hole in it, only in the replica front.
People could try to post something all they like but won’t get anything past the thickness of the wood.

In the 39 years I have lived here we have had one bird table nicked from the front garden and another one smashed.
We also had a doorbell intercom smashed off the wall.
Our shed was broken into and we had some stuff nicked, and we had an attempted break in at the front, plus some graffiti and minor damage to our garage wall.

The house also got egged once, and only once. I think the kids that did it were rather surprised when I vaulted our 2m wooden fence and chased them up the road!

We’ve had no problems since we installed a bungler alarm, and later, security lights and cameras, at least not from two legged predators.

The worst culprits now are the badgers and foxes that destroy or nick stuff.

i love it !

That is a very sad indictment of your society/neighbourhood

I was thinking that the Collection Times sheet could be changed to the house number.

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Ah, now I like that idea. Thanks.