You will need the lids so they will stack properly.

Just cut out a hole in the lid, with enough of an edge left to keep it stable. A better bucket to use is the 3.5 gallon ones if you can find them. They are wider but not as tall. They are usually made of a thicker plastic too. Made to contain a heaver material.

You can get free buckets with lids from restaurants. If you know someone who works in one ask them to save you the buckets. Restaurants normally don't like people just walking in and asking for them. The restaurant i work at gets pickles and dish soap in 5 gallon buckets. We empty a bucket at least once a week. Unless no one wants them they go into the garbage.

Unfortunatly I dont know of anyone that gets the 3.5g around here all I have beeen able to find so far are the 5's buut I will keep looking. Does anybody have a pic of one they built using the same method.

Organic_pepper:

I have seen photos on the internet of exactly what you are talking about; so do a little image Googling. You could also take off from this Urn-style Wormery --
http://www.guardianecostore.co.uk/guardian/product.aspx?subGroup=3486 -- and use plastic planters. They come in all sizes and have some holes already in the base. You might want to drill some extra holes. Planter saucers would work as the drip tray and lid. As long as the open bottom of the upper buckets rests firmly on the decomposing material of the lower material, you should be fine. You are just creating an expanding tower.

Even easier would be the "5 dollar, 1/2 hour Worm Composting Bin(s)":
http://www.instructables.com/id/5-dollar-12-hour-Worm-Composting-Bins/
However, instead of the plastic sheet, I would suggest this order from the bottom up:
- Solid tray or surface
- Empty tray lined with weed cloth or something porous to allow liquid to drain, and keep worms from escaping.
- First working tray lined with cardboard. By the time the cardboard breaks down, the upper trays will be in full operation.
- Stack more trays as desired.
- Solid cover.

Good luck!

So, I will need 5 buckets? First to collect worm poo tea, second lined with weed cloth only, third bedding only,fourth scaps, fifth extra for food scrap and a lid. is this correct?

Organicpepper_grower,

If you go the bucket route, you start with just two buckets, and add more to the top as needed. The bottom bucket is to catch draining liquid (which, BTW, is leachate, not worm tea) and has no holes. The upper buckets should have holes for excess moisture to drip through and the worms to migrate up and down. The working bins always start with bedding, food, worms, topped with more bedding, then a cover of some kind to keep worms from escaping. When that level is 1/2-3/4 full, move the top bedding to the bottom of the next level and continue on. (The bedding in the bottom of the first bin/bucket will be processed as with other food.)

The weed cloth is used to prevent VC and worms from falling into the bottom collection bin/bucket. In the "5 dollar, 1/2 hour Worm Composting Bin(s)" I suggested putting the weed cloth in an empty tray because if the base is open, you will have escapees. The working tray would nest into it. If you use buckets you could just drape the weed cloth into the collection bucket, then nest the working bucket into it. Some basic bin instructions have build false bottoms. You don't want to put the weed cloth into a working tray because you'll have trouble harvesting it later, and once the upper trays start moving down, you will lose your worm safety net.

Hope I was clearer this time. Good luck.

Pretty sure I got it this time, I'll try to post some pics when I get going.

I couldnt find the lids I was looking for but I still needed a way for me to separate the worms from the castings, so I set up a three container system as you would for the buckets. I filled the middle container with the castings and worms and they all moved up to the top where there was some fresh bedding and food, I took the top bin and added those to my existing bin. Just have to wait for the castings to dry a little. I got it spread over a screen that I use for screening compost.