Adding Legs...

Sometimes I wonder what guides me as I make these. This time I decided for some reason to make the legs next. I wanted the costume to be a little clownish, so the legs would be a good selling point for this.

First, I want point out a little fix. In a previous blog I mentioned that it was sometimes difficult to get long small drills to track correctly through the body block. I was not happy will this one so I made a correction.  You can see the result in the next photo.  Drilling from the bottom I drilled a new 1/8" hole up to the neck hole. The exit hole on the bottom was not close enough to centre for my liking. After establishing a new path I drilled out a 3/16" diameter hole in the bottom about 1/4" deep and glued in a piece of dowel. When dried. I drilled a new 1//8" hole through in the correct centre. You can see the finished repair in the photo. The  dowel, now sanded to shape, is between the two leg holes. (The 1/8" rod is installed to hold the body vertically straight while the leg holes are drilled - next step)

I used 3/16" dowels for the legs. I wanted them larger at the body, but drilling larger holes risked cutting out material the body as I drilled so I decided to make collars to slide over the dowels instead. Using the jig shown above I located and drilled the leg holes. I then took a length of 1/2" dowel and drilled it out with a 3/16" hole and cut it into two short pieces. I rounded the lower ends by sanding to represent the bottom of the knees, and by inserting the dowel into each leg hole and shaping the top profile of the collars with a Dremel to match the contour of the body I was able to get the effect I wanted. Here's a photo after this step.

I used a scrap of Tupelo from the cutoff from the body block to make the feet.

Here are the feet cut out. They are about 1-3/8" long. Long feet add to the clownish appearance - well to me anyway!

Here's are chicken maiden now, legs cut to length and feet attached. It is important she stands straight so the actuator rod has free movement.

More to come...