So...it didn't take long yesterday before I figured out a much better way to make this bird, so I pulled apart all of the pieces I made yesterday and headed to the hardware store for a really long dowel so that the neck and front leg would be one continuous piece. I've learned over time that you need to have no regrets about making these decisions, no matter how much time you have already invested in a project. It's a much more solid piece now, where the heaviest and almost only vital element is the long dowel and not the guitar body itself.
At some point, I'd love to figure out how big this piece is in comparison to my normal work and be able to rattle that out as a percentage--it's definitely the tallest freestanding thing to ever come out of this studio. Any math whizzes reading this? I use a very high quality epoxy for most of my joinery, so I am trying to do as much careful planning as possible so I can use as much of the mixed elixir as possible. I was trying to figure out how to estimate the tail feather length so I could glue the pieces in and bend the curves later. I decided to make a tracing of the guitar body so I could make a template, and then I traced it on the pavement outside so I could lay the feather parts out in different configurations, trimming excess wire when necessary.
I also spent some time cutting a piece that I mounted on the interior of the guitar body so that the wires had a little more to sink into. The 1/8 inch guitar body would allow the topheavy wires to flop, and I just can't have that. Before retiring last night, I got everything glued except the beak and eyes, which I want to paint separately. Today is going to be a huge push to paint this pretty boy, but I know that once I start seeing the color emerge, I get a burst of energy that carries the project through to the end. Let's hope this case is no exception.
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