Nantucket Sailor Boy Whirligig

After some digging around online and looking for a quick little project to do today while my chair parts dry in the kiln, I decided to make something I have never made before, a Whirligig. You've most likely seen the ducks or the goose, maybe the guy sawing a log or the woman washing clothes, but for those of you who haven't seen them, the Nantucket Sailor Boy Whirligig is one that is very, very collectible and very, very expensive in antique form. I have looked at some online that are in the $3800 range. While this isn't the norm and I don't know who would buy one for that, it's kind of cool little guy to make.

     Here is the version I made today just to pass the time. Its just a 3/4" thick piece of wood cut to shape, I turned the hat and the arms on the lathe, made the paddles out of 3/16" thick walnut and shaped it with a block plane then took a knife and whittled the profile. After some headscratching to get the paint colors right, I mixed up about 5 different colors and started to paint. I wanted mine to have that old and crusty dry paint texture of an antique, so with a little sanding and buffing this is what came out. You can just make out the word Nantucket on the sailors shirt but that, in my opinion, was the hardest part. I'm not a real steady hand when it comes to details like that and had to repaint it once, hence the darker blue under the word. All and all it was fun just to make something new and different. I could see getting into making these just to please the 8 year old in me. Theres something about a wooden toy with moving parts that makes the young'un in me smile.

Mini Log Cabins of the Frontier

I've always loved the look of those old, square log cabins you see that were built in the pioneer days, and actually earlier than that.  Some are still standing, some falling down and more importantly some being brought back to life and lived in again. 

    So with an idea for a mini sized version, I've started making these miniature sized Log Cabins. From what I've been told, German fathers would actually make these to give to a son as sort of a good luck charm and to bring peace and prosperity to him and his new bride. I don't know if that's true, but its kind of a cool story.

I started making these based just off of pictures I've seen of old ones still standing. The logs I "hand hewn" with a drawknife and each shingle is applied one at a time. I put in some chinking compound a little paint/stain and wallah, I have a fairly authentic looking mini log cabin. I've kinda got the bug from making these. It's almost a sky's the limit as what you an do, and you can go as primitive as you want. I would love to someday, either find an old one still standing and move it to my land or build one from scratch, but until then this is going to have to satisfy. Hey, maybe it could serve as a blue print for one I someday plan to build, and that alone is worth the time involved to make these. 

Chair-maker in the making...

I had been sitting at the shaving horse all day when my 3 year old daughter Lily, came out to see me. I stood up and walked over to the bench a few steps away, turned around and Lily was on the shaving horse doing what she saw me do. I had to take a quick picture with my phone before this one got away. I hope even if she doesn't go as nuts over woodworking as I have, that she at least appreciates it down the road. It would be incredible if I had a chair making buddy though.

Covered Wagon Bed

    Now that I am caught up for a week I have to try and get this bed knocked out. It's a bed for my 2 year old daughter, Lily. My wife came to me and said Lily needed a new bed. She is at the age where she's ready to start crawling out and we don't want her to climb out of the crib thats off the ground 3 or 4 feet, so I thought, what would be a good bed that would be unique at the same time and after a few weeks of looking online, I thought, I've never seen a covered wagon bed (light bulb). I looked online for ideas and all I could find were pictures of old wagons and ones people had restored. I needed it to fit her toddler mattress and being that she like us to drape blankets over her crib at night and call it her "tent" I thought this would be perfect. I began with a dovetailed box that will fit her mattress and just went from there. Being that I had several oak logs, I split out the bows that will have the canvas covering them and steam bent them around one of the wheel rims. It worked perfectly. Today I got the wheel hubs and and spokes made and hopefully tomorrow I can get the wheels all put together. This is a very fun and at times a real head scratcher but fun project. I'll post more pictures of the process as I get further along.

Laughing is the best medicine

One night while we were getting our daughter Lily Mae ready for bed and into her PJ's, a fly started buzzing around, so I was trying to smack it in my hands and Lily just started busting up laughing. I couldn't help but but keep it up. I mean who doesn't love a laughing child. Theres no better medicine than to hear those few seconds of pure joy.