How would you mount this mailbox?

[Bennylava]

As you can see from the bottom, there are just 4 holes in the base. I guess they're just bolt holes. It seems most everyone on my street uses concrete, but I'm not much of a concrete guy and I've seldom worked with it. What method would you use, to go about creating the base for this thing to sit on?

 

[Milton Shaw]

A bag or two of bagged concrete and some anchor bolts are about the only thing that will work on that. Look for YTubes on concrete and see how it is done. Basically you dig a hole form it up with some 2x4's, level, and mix concrete with water in a bucket or wheelbarrow and place the concrete and then smooth the top and place the bolts. It's a couple of hours work and it's done right.

 

[radrush]

As you can see from the bottom, there are just 4 holes in the base. I guess they're just bolt holes. It seems most everyone on my street uses concrete, but I'm not much of a concrete guy and I've seldom worked with it.

Dude, man-card revoked! The shame....

 

[countryroad82]

Doesn't look all that tall. I would make a form also and pour some concrete.

 

[Bennylava]

Dude, man-card revoked! The shame....

Eh, I don't even care. Machines are my thing, I'll leave all that nasty wet concrete to the illegals.

But yeah I was thinking of the whole creating a form thing, but I didn't want it to come out looking like poop. Smooth looking, regular edges and all that. The fact that someone said it will all take about 2 hours, kind of makes me think I was right about that part. I wouldn't care about that, but its going to have to stick out of the ground a bit in order to reach the height of my current mailbox that it'll be replacing.

 

[BD1]

If you decide on concrete, have a larger base for the bottom and then step it in for the top. Make a wood template with the bolts attached and set in top section. Cover with stainless or aluminum sheet metal

 

[rvieceli]

Here's another option, it uses concrete but only to anchor and won't be seen.

Take a piece of steel plate the same size as your base drill it for the 4 mounting bolts. Weld a piece of pipe or tube to the center of the bottom. Drill a hole in the tube bottom to insert a short piece of rebar. Use a post hole digger to dig your hole. Throw in the the bag of concrete around the "post" level the plate and wait for it to cure.

Install

 

[tymbo]

Is that postmaster approved?

 

[rsanter]

Drive a 3' long piece of pipe into the ground.
Weld a steel plate to the top of the pipe
Bolt to the plate

Bob

 

[CNGsaves]

Need more info . . . . . rural . . . city . . . high-speed road ???

Any problems with vandalism ???

Update GJ Profile with a Location.

 

[rlitman]

...But yeah I was thinking of the whole creating a form thing, but I didn't want it to come out looking like poop...

Why would it look bad? If you did it right, it wouldn't be visible at all. Everything can be hidden by the metal base.

 

[zkling]

Here's another option, it uses concrete but only to anchor and won't be seen.

Take a piece of steel plate the same size as your base drill it for the 4 mounting bolts. Weld a piece of pipe or tube to the center of the bottom. Drill a hole in the tube bottom to insert a short piece of rebar. Use a post hole digger to dig your hole. Throw in the the bag of concrete around the "post" level the plate and wait for it to cure.

Install

Drive a 3' long piece of pipe into the ground.
Weld a steel plate to the top of the pipe
Bolt to the plate

Bob

That is what I was thinking. Having to pour a form large enough to put anchors in is going to be a pain.

 

[Bennylava]

Need more info . . . . . rural . . . city . . . high-speed road ???

Any problems with vandalism ???

Update GJ Profile with a Location.

Well I live in a somewhat small town, population 30k. I'm 35 miles south of Fort worth TX. So the crime... not really that big of an issue. Plus I live on the good side of town, so that helps. No real problems with vandalism. But its definitely not rural, its in town.

Here's another option, it uses concrete but only to anchor and won't be seen.

Take a piece of steel plate the same size as your base drill it for the 4 mounting bolts. Weld a piece of pipe or tube to the center of the bottom. Drill a hole in the tube bottom to insert a short piece of rebar. Use a post hole digger to dig your hole. Throw in the the bag of concrete around the "post" level the plate and wait for it to cure.

Install

I like this idea. Only thing is, the mount does need to raise the mailbox up about 4 inches.

 

[drivesitfar]

Ben: i'd probably make a 8 or 12 inch form for cement with the four J bolts sticking out of the cement where you have holes in your mailbox stand. then to keep somebody from just unscrewing the nuts and taking your nice mailbox i'd either trash the threads so the nuts wont unscrew or put some tack welds on them if you are a welder. sure they can sawsall off the bolts so if you weren't in a GOOD part of town i might put some steel plate up around the edges of the stand so some jerk couldn't sawsall off the bolts or nuts.

 

[CNGsaves]

Like the idea of buried steel post in concrete, then whatever "wrap" or cosmetic covering goes over that up to your mounting plate. Covering could be cedar wood, pressure-treated wood, "poly" wood, etc or whatever looks appropriate for you that matches the mailbox.

For in town, low mph setup think you have lots of leeway. Being in nice part of town helps even more as sounds like your risk of vandalism is low.

You might even consider stamped steel that has designs like ceiling coverings. If it had small enough pattern, you could wrap base in stamped steel with artistic designs that complement the mail box.

Good luck in dreaming up what would work with that cool mailbox.

If it were ME . . . . I'd consider going "whole hog" and running low voltage lighting out there and put in nice brick setup that matched the house. Having a lighted address and that cool mailbox would look VERY nice in upscale neighborhood !!

 

[gahrajmahal]

Since it has to be raised take it to a monument (gravestone) shop and have them cut a nice stone base with bevels. Weld up a plate on top of a post that goes onto the hole. This bolts underneath to the stone base, then the mail box bolts to the top of the stone base.

 

[Shiftless]

Since it has to be raised take it to a monument (gravestone) shop and have them cut a nice stone base with bevels. Weld up a plate on top of a post that goes onto the hole. This bolts underneath to the stone base, then the mail box bolts to the top of the stone base.

thanks gahrajmahal!
That post reaffirms my faith in the GJ community to eventually come up with the most elaborate solution to the simplest of problems!

Here's what I did...
At first I had the standard rural mailbox mounted to a 4x4 post sitting in a post hole. No concrete.
A guy lost control of his Mercedes 450 SL and ran over it.

I reset it the same way.
Guess what happened a couple of years later?
Right,
Drunk guy ran his Toyota 4x4 over my mailbox.

Third time I dug a 2 foot deep hole, inserted a piece of 10 inch Sonotube most of the way into the hole. Mixed up a couple bags of high strength concrete and filled up the tube. Added a simpson 6x6 post anchor on top when the mud was still wet. Wood up from there to a high security locking mailbox. Low growing juniper bushes hide the concrete column.
I live in a "nice" neighborhood but I just now realized that somebody could steal my box using a chainsaw.

So far nobody has challenged the structural integrity of my installation but I'm sure some day it will happen.

 

[drivesitfar]

Shift: if the OP didn't already own his own elaborate mailbox and stand i'd like your idea in many places.

just an FYI i had to replace my mailbox twice two because kids would take out our wood posts with 4 mailboxes on them. since i built a platform on top of 4 4x4's buried in cement with several reflectors on them its almost ready to be replaced after 25 years without an incident.

BTW if the 350 SL would have hit your current cement stand i bet he'd be in heaven now.

 

[kerrynzl]

Drive a 3' long piece of pipe into the ground.
Weld a steel plate to the top of the pipe
Bolt to the plate

Bob

This^^^^^ but instead of a piece of pipe hammer a Waratah fence post into the ground

A Waratah fence post is a "Y" shaped section that farmers use [ it has a large side surface area and small end section area to hammer in ]

 

[gahrajmahal]

Oh yea Shiftless, I can come up with even more elaborate stuff if I am spending other people's money. The OP has a beautiful mailbox and did not wish to do any concrete work. My suggestion is just hammer into the ground and some bolts. Personally I just replaced mailbox number 8. This one didn't get knocked over, it managed to survive to rot off at the ground. I replaced it with a 6 x 6 post (in place of the 4 x 4) and dadoed two 2 x 8's to make the mount. I cut some decorative curves into it and sunk it three feet into the dirt. No concrete. ( makes it easier to get the piece out when this one gets hit) . My last 6 x 6 post and box was taken out when the county snow plow slid off the road into it.

I took photos and plan to do a post sometime.

 

[Bennylava]

thanks gahrajmahal!A guy lost control of his Mercedes 450 SL and ran over it.

I reset it the same way.
Guess what happened a couple of years later?
Right,
Drunk guy ran his Toyota 4x4 over my mailbox.


So far nobody has challenged the structural integrity of my installation but I'm sure some day it will happen.

Before we were married the wife used to live out in a rural area. I swear knocking down her mailbox was some kind of pastime for people. It must have happened 10 times. They'd just run over it, I guess they didn't care what happened to their cars or they couldn't drive for...poop.

I always wanted to stick something out there that would just tear a vehicle to shreds lol. Something with a bunch of solid metal spikes all over it, that was anchored 8 feet in the ground. Then just leave a video camera recording that mailbox 24/7. Then upload the videos to youtube.