Protective cover, bird protection, plant protection

Everyone knows the problem of young lettuce plants being nibbled on in the garden. We had that problem too.

So we had to find a solution. It had to be something without chemicals, something mechanical. It had to be durable, but not expensive.

Aluminum rods are durable and not expensive in the small dimensions, because the material is charged by weight in the metal trade and there is not much weight together.

Unfortunately, I can't weld aluminum. But I can print connecting elements.

The flat material is 10 x 3 mm and is available in 6 meter rods in the metal trade. The same applies to the 20 x 20 x 2 mm angle profile.

I connected the corners of the angle profiles with blind rivets. I used M4 threaded screws for the flat profiles. To form the arches, I bent the flat material around an old engine oil drum. It works wonderfully.

The mesh is available from hardware stores as "hexagonal mesh" or rabbit mesh. It may also be available by the meter from a roll. I have used a mesh size of 13 mm. Possibly a little larger should also suffice.

The nice thing about the whole thing is. You can adjust the size of the arches and also the length and width to suit your individual requirements. The only important thing is that the ends of the arches are vertical at the transition to the angle profile.

I made the protective cover 1.50 m long and 0.80 m wide. There is little waste with the 6 mtr. bar.

I printed the parts with my Elegoo Saturn 8k and Anycubic tough Resin gray.

Print settings bottom exposure 35 seconds and normal exposure 3 seconds. Layer 0.05 mm.