Outside Worm Bin (work in progress)

I was out in my neighbors field yesterday looking for random rocks to toss into my rock garden when I stumbled upon an old Orange Bin used at the local orange packing houses to store oranges for transport. My neighbor probably used it at some point years ago to feed his grandfathers many horses, but eventually the bottom rotted out and it was forgotten, as various other projects collected on top of it. I took one look and knew I could do something with it!

I still don't have any real design plans, but after seeing people using troughs, lifted by cinder blocks with a drainage hole for leachate and a bucket to catch it, I decided I wanted to try to design some sort of outside bin, with a lid that could be insulated, but could also be lifted so that leachate could collect and castings could be removed without much effort. Those are my requirements, which means I've got a lot of work ahead of me to design a nice worm bin out of what I have.

There is some termite damage on one of the 4 x 4s, but it looks old and I doubt they're active in the wood anymore. The bottom is completely rotted out, which is a blessing really, as I dont have to take off any rotten boards and can just design and add the bottom as I see fit.

I like the metal around the top and will probably put a hinge on the side, below the metal to secure the lid that I eventually make. If you have any ideas, hints, or tips for me I'd really appreciate any and all feedback, even if you think I'm nuts for using this (I've never built a worm bin before so I'm just going with the flow). I will be reading up on how to build various worm bins out of wood and borrow ideas from others as I go, but it should be a fun and interesting process and since I'm serious about vermicomposting, I realized I needed to start planning a bigger worm bin sooner than later!