Building a 3-bin compost system, this time with blueprints + instructions

A lot of people responded to last week’s edition with the obvious question: how can I build my own? Yes, of course. It was kind of rude of me to send you photos and some vague stories and then not offer any meaningful step-by-step. To make up for my oversight:

Here are the blueprints + instructions for building the patented Marketos “Fuck It” 3-bin Compost System, NO LID edition.

A couple notes:

• I’ve never written my own blueprints before. Boy, it’s tough.

• I understand more clearly now why the blueprints I found online were not always perfect. Humble pie, eaten.

• The design above was based on the best blueprint I did find, which was made by the good people at the University of Arkansas. The differences between mine and theirs: I use less hardware, require fewer wood cuts, added more reinforcement for the sides, and opted for no lid.

• On that note: you can completely add a lid, if you think a lid is necessary. They often are. In the case of the bin I built, I will be using a biocap of sawdust + cardboard instead of an actual lid.

• While crafting this particular compost bin, I did make choices—and those choices had tradeoffs. For example, in every instance where the choice was between total perfection and ease-of-build, I always favored “ease-of-build.” Making these designs more accessible to more people was more important to me than constructing the absolutely perfect set of bins.

• I am not charging for these blueprints. However, if you would like to make a simple donation for their use, you can Venmo me at @cass-marketos (my avatar is me in a purple shirt, you can bypass the “confirm phone #” part) - I will use the proceeds to take all my friends who helped out with this to a nice dinner. If you don’t want to pay anything, that is also fine.

• Special thanks is owed to Kevin Spring, who let me ask him a million questions in order to transcribe the blueprints and then personally sat down and drew out all the accompanying illustrations (which I love).

Lastly, I do want to emphasize that this is my first attempt (ever!) at making a blueprint of anything. That means I need your feedback. If you do choose to undertake this build, let me know how it goes. What worked? What was confusing? Where did you need more detail and where did I add too much? I want to hear all about it. I will continue to update & iterate on these designs based on your thoughts.

Love,

Cass

PS. Here’s Kevin drawing the bins for the blueprint: