The lumber was old rough cut 2x3s from a demo along with a few other scraps. All the 2x3s were cut to 28 inches to start, with a total of 42 pieces. Each arm and leg was 5 pieces glued up, squared and spun on the lathe. I used Titebond 3 and gave it several days to cure since it had to hold up on the lathe at 1000 rpm.
Snipe on the planer was a big issue and left many of the glue joints open. I decided to call it rustic and live with it, but did worry a bit when spinning that right leg since an entire joint was open. The chest and head glue-ups were both done as semi circles, each piece cut at 36 degrees, then run through the planer to get them flat again.On final glue up, I added lumber to the chest for width. I used an electric hand planer to shape them and then a side arm grinder to finish. The chest is capped on top, however the bottom piece is permanently attached to the the top of the legs. There are eye hooks on the the top of each leg and chain that goes up to an eye bolt that goes through the top of the hat. I used a horseshoe washer so that I can thread the bolt with nut already on it to assemble.The hair came from the dollar store as did the plume. I need to redo the hair next year as blonde doesnt quite work. For paint I bought Behr exterior paint samples in black, white, yellow, red, blue and hunter green and a tiny bottle of Folkart outdoor Inca gold acrylic.Like most all of my projects, it does have a hidden bottle wrench, but I decided against making it a functional nutcracker since it could be somewhat dangerous for the size (although I did consider how nice a clamp it would make - you can never have too many clamps.) And finally, I decided to hijack a logo since this fellow is a proud member of the army of Mere Mortals.
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