tributesinwood

Fun With Details

I think that I have the most fun with adding the little details to the carving.  I’m just starting to epoxy the pieces together so I want to make sure that I add the smaller details before things are permanently in place and more difficult to reach easily.

The first thing I did before epoxying “Wendell’s” feet to the apartment ledge was to add shoelaces.  The laces are just black 16 gauge wire that you can buy at any hardware store.  With an awl, I poked some shoe lace holes into the shoes and made small “u” shaped pieces of wire and glued them in place with a little bit of CA glue ( “crazy glue” ).  Left as black wire, they look great and look even better with one shoe tied ( just a loop on the wire ) and the other shoe untied.

I like the way that this turned out with the shoe lace dragging on the ledge.  The other side of the shoe has the lace hanging down below the ledge.

The “tied” shoe lace is actually two separate loops of wire with a single larger hole in the centre of the lace where I glued both halves to the shoe.  

I should mention that gluing ( with epoxy ) the feet to the ledge was a bit of an ordeal.  I had to position the figure so that his upturned toes were against the window frame, his hand with the rag on it was in the right plane  of the window both horizontally and vertically and that I had room for the arms and head when I attached the “ropes” to his swing seat.  So, it took a bit of positioning.  Once I had it where I wanted it, I drilled both the feet and the ledge and inserted an inch long nail ( with the heads removed ) into the feet and ledge and epoxied around them.  The toes against the window frames also got a dab of CA glue.  The final thing that will give some added strength to the figure is the seat suspended by “ropes”…that’s next.