You'd better build the arm under the box pretty stout! It's going to take a good hit to make it spin AND travel vertically no matter how well lubed it is, and it better be pretty lubed to keep it from rusting and sticking. JMHO....
I augured a hole on the opposite side of the ditch from the road. Dropped a RR tie in it. Cut it off at regulation height,,, drilled a 3/8 hole vertically in the top of center tie and sunk an 8" or so long piece of rebar in said hole (bolt with head cut off also works). Drilled a 3/8 hole in a 2x6 - 8 footer about 3' from end and mounted hole on rebar. A eyebolt lag screwed into tie at ground level and a long threaded eye bolt on the other end with a piece of chain or cable so you can adjust height. Swivels about 120 degrees and actually lifts up the further it swivels. Had this setup 15 years and nothing has owned it yet. Ive actually seen the township guys swing it out of the way when they are digging the ditch just to make things easier. It will swing back to center on its own due to the way the chain lifts the arm the farther away from center it gets. I used a hemlock 2x6 I had laying around and slop some used oil or fryer oil on it and the RR tie once a summer just to extend its life.
Ironpony has a great system that's really simple, but this is what I was thinking before he posted that. Sink a pipe in the ground. Find a pipe that just fits over that to slide over as a sleeve, until it hits a rod pressed through the pipe in the ground. There's a notch cut in the large sleeve so it self centers, and coil springs attached from the pole to the sleeve to always let it swing back into place. From the sleeve you attached a horizontal beam to which you attach your mailbox. That beam can be as long as you want it, so you could set your pole 4' from the road and just use a longer beam to keep the box in the right place.
McDonalds and Burger King have used break away poles like you've shown IP. Usually were 4" outside pipe with that 45 degree cut, over 3.5" inside pipes. Worked well in all kinds of situations. Perfect for the ultimate mailbox post. Weld on a 4' arm and use a chunk of 8"x12" steel tube 1/4" wall, about 2 feet long (mailbox)... and you've got yourself a pretty indestructible mailbox that'll ruin every mailbox baseball smasher's night... every time...
Depends on the strength and length of the spring. If you use those old screen door springs, it'd probably rotate several full revolutions!
What causes it to return to center and face the road again? I like the idea of the swivel on another pipe but I dont see how it would return to its original position. What am I missing? Maybe Im overthinking this whole thing?
I like that idea too but the springs do make me wonder about the return speed of the box, I would rather the whole thing swivel around and then just settle back where it needs to go. Ill have to play with all of these ideas and see what works best for me.
not sure what happened there The weight of the box pushing down causes it to rotate back to center and the angle lines back up
The bottom half of the outside pipe is welded solid to the smaller inside pipe. When you rotate the top pipe, that 45 degree forces the top upward as it rotates to either side. As IP said, the weight of what hangs on the top section is what causes it to return back to center (where the 2-45 degree cut ends match up) Watch this short vid... you can see the pipe move up and down as it rotates...
Tomorrow Im going to see if I can get enough conduit from work to mock up a couple of the different ideas and see which one works best for me. Hopefully I will be able to get this thing installed in the next couple of weeks.
Lots of good ideas but.....If yours was hit with a bat or something similar, I don't see a moving mount saving it.
Its been a car, truck, tractor etc. every time. My idea with the moving mount is that when it gets hit again and Im sure it will that the ground post will be far enough away from the road that it wont be hit at all and that the mounting arm with the mailbox will be hit but just swing away and hopefully will sustain minimal damage. For the time being I will just put a cheapo box on there but am planning to upgrade it in the future to a 1/4" steel box that will be able to absorb more of a hit so hopefully with a combination of the thickness of the box and the immediate movement away from whatever is hitting it that will help to minimize damage and hopefully I wont have to keep replacing my box and ground post every 4-5 months. Ive been lucky so far and have actually only had to buy one mailbox between the to that I have had I have been able to repair them both a couple of times. Hopefully this will be the last time.
