Box Fan Feet replace the small plastic kick over feet
A lot of places in summer need better airflow. Box Fans are a good cheap way to keep cool and ventilated in a summer. Making Box Fan Feet from 2X2 soft woods like pine or cedar can give you more life for the fans and fewer scared pets and banged naked toes. This project could be made simply with a vise, a pencil, a ruler, a drill and a hand saw. However I am did it with a Table Saw Sled and a drill press replacing the vise, hand saw and hand drill, for better precision.
From a previous project I had some left over 1.5″ X 1.5″ long board stock cut down from a standard 2X4. The cross section of the Box Fan Feet make it so there is a taper at the end on each side to make them less prone to stubbing a toe.
You can use a sliding Miter Saw or a Sled on your Table Saw to make these wooden Box Fan Feet, by cutting the angles on to the ends and then use repeated passes on the marked areas at a depth of 3/4 inch to fit the 4 and 1/2 thick box fan.
Connect it together
Below you can see the front of the box fan open, and the way it is secured to the the feet using 1/4″ X 20 bolts, washers and wingnuts. You can also see in the below image a large magnet from Harbor Freight that was useful for holding the screws for the plastic grate that needed to be reinstalled to protect fingers, toes and wagging puppy dog tails.
In the drawing below you can see the final Box Fan Feet cross section, done up on my beloved graph paper. Here the square is something I decided was a half an inch. You can see how I was thinking of doing something maybe involving a plastic appliance to hold onto the grid/lattice on the box fan… But you can see I would rather just connect them with bolts and wing nuts…
How to draw it out for yourself.
It is always a good practice to try and use what you have laying around. In my case I have the 1/4″ X 20 bolts etc. You can easily figure out if you have enough materials lying around by drawing and writing out what you need and go shopping in your own house for it.
And you can see below how I over designed, or clumsily did so.
