FILENAMES: SquirrelGuard.jpg DESCRIPTION: These is a picture of a squirrel guard for a bird feeder. Posted by Bob Chilcoat . The following description was provided: ================================================================= I made this squirrel guard for my bird feeder, after some experimentation, and it has been 100% effective for several years. See the accompanying photo, SquirrelGuard.jpg. It's a 14" diameter galvanized sheet metal cone, 45 degrees on a side (90 degrees total angle), that goes around the 3/4" EMT pipe support. The hole at the apex is oversized by a quarter of an inch or so, and the cone is suspended by three 4" long chains from a clamp above it. The cone is loose on the pole, and if a squirrel tries to climb around it, the side he's managed to grab tilts and the thing dumps him off. The chains I used are those sheet metal chains that are a bit like a leather link belt. I don't know what they're called, but each link is stamped out of sheet metal, with an eye at each end and a narrow section in the center. When the chain is assembled, a loop is formed through the two eyes of the previous link, and the two eyes are brought together so the next link can have its loop formed through them. This type of chain works really well. Three holes are drilled around the top of the cone, just big enough for the end loops of the chains to pass through. These loops are then skewered by a heavy wire ring under the cone, so that the three chains are now attached to the cone. The other ends of the chains (which have the eyes in them) can be rivited to the clamp that attaches the assembly to the pole, although I just three little tabs on the bottom of the clamp when I made it, and just bent these up through the eyes. I originally made a smaller (10" diameter) aluminum cone that was rigidly fixed to the pole, and the squirrels figured out that one within a few weeks. The next step was to suspend it loosely, like the current one, and it worked for a year or so. Eventually they got around that, too, by pulling it down and reaching around it. This one is too big for them to do that, and has worked perfectly for three years, now. The only problem with this one, is that it's heavy. You don't want it to be so heavy that it doesn't easily tilt when an attempt is make to climb around it. Bob Chilcoat