Popular Woodworking 2002-08 № 129, страница 79

Here you can see how the head fits onto the sacrificial base plate when routing the eight slots (top). Be sure to use a stop block to limit the cut into the head piece (right).

Because I needed a readily available, lightweight and weather-resistant wood, I chose cedar. Fortunately, the egg finial is available in cedar. For the rest of the octopod's parts, you will find that even the lowest-grade cedar board will yield enough clear material for a fleet of these whirligigs.

Routing the Head

Start the transformation of egg to octopus by attaching the finial to a sacrificial octagonal base plate. Use a short length of dowel in the original turning center and add a couple more dowels, slightly off center, to prevent the finial from rotating during the cuts. Chuck a V2" straight bit into your table-mounted router and cut eight (you'll be seeing that number a lot) shoulder slots in the base of the finial using the half-octagon jig. (See half-size patterns at right.)

Cutting the notches in the hands and shoulders requires making a simple jig to hold the work under a radial arm saw (above). If you don't have a radial arm saw, this could be rigged up easily on a table saw using a sled that runs in the miter slot. After cutting the slot, make sure your dowels move freely in the shoulder

Tentacle Time

Plane your rough-sawn lumberyard cedar down to V2" thick. Cut out some straight-grained portions of the board for the tentacle components. Apply the full-size patterns for the shoulders, arms and hands with a light application of spray adhesive and then scroll saw for an hour while listening to Ringo Starr's "Octopus's Garden."

To safely cut the notches in the shoulders and hands, I came up with a simple jig for my radial arm saw that consists of a wooden handscrew clamp attached perpendicular to the long edge of a straight board. I aligned the notch's depth line on the pattern with the top edge of the clamp and adjusted the blade height until the tips of the teeth were just touching the top of the clamp. It was then a simple matter to nibble away the grooves.

You can use a ^2,/64" drill bit to set the depth of your Forstner bit when cutting the tenons.This will leave a ⁵/32 "-thick tenon (above). Be sure to back up the underside of the tenon as you make the other cheek cut. The parts are small and the wood is lightweight (right).

To cut the tenons on the arm sections, return to the drill press, chuck in a 1" Forstner bit, and remove material from both sides. Since you're now dealing with some fairly delicate parts, it's important to support the half-cut

tenon from below when making the second bore. For this I used a small stack of plastic laminate samples from the hardware store.

With the mortise-and-tenon operations complete, turn to the drill press and bore the pivot-pin

78 Popular Woodworking August 2002