Joining arms to torso.

[STAR]

A project I am working on is a Toad carrying a football. It represents a football player standing upright with the ball being carried in his arm.

So far, it is coming along ok for a beginner, Rather then dom it all from one piece of wood I decided to make it in parts and glue it together. eg. The head, neck, torso, shorts and thighs are done as one piece.

The two arms are done separately, mainly because I am basically happy with the main body, it was done as a bust. So if the rest fails I will finish with something. Getting the arms and hands right is a bit fiddly. What I have done is to make a shoulder arm and hands with the ball tucked in. Now to get the balance right I want to temporally attach the arm to the body. Would you use hot glue or is their something better.

I will do the same to the other arm and the two legs. By doing it this way I hope to be able to see if any refinements need to be made before joining permanently. The Toad will then be mounted on a some highly polished wood with a brass engraving on it with the words " WALLY "

So far, this carving might be shown here. I have until the 25th of march to have it finished.

Pete

[mpounders]

I usually drill a hole in the shoulder and the torso (not all the way through either piece) and then use a piece of dowel to join the pieces. This allows you to play with the positioning and acts as a register also for permanently joining the two pieces. You might look at Lynn Doughty's video that shows this process Monte Walsh - Part 3-A on Vimeo .

[chipmunk]

if u want to make the arms,legs,head to move use ball-socket little eyelets or hooks of wire[coathanger] and rubber band or a o rings put the head and legs together then the arms but u have to drill holes to put the rubber bands though they make a yellow stick of hot glue it's a lot stronger then the clear dowels 3/16" r good idea to hold in place to work on they can be glued then twisted off and sanded off-out

[Steve Reed]

Pete, I agree with using the dowels once you get them positioned. This by-the-way, is called a "Dutchman". Will provide a good strong joint.
Steve

[STAR]

Thanks guys. I took your advice again and went with some meat skewers which I cut to length, They made perfect dowels for the size of the shoulders.

He's all finished now bar the mounting on the base.

Pete

[Claude]

Pete:
The DIY stores usually don't carry dowels much smaller than a quarter inch (6mm), but a craft store (such as Michaels in the US) carries dowels from 1 inch (25cm) down to 1/16 inch (~1.5mm).

Claude