A Little Urchin...Small & Very Fragile

[James Combs]

Have seen some of these on here before and wanted to try my hand at them. Ordered a bulk box off Amazon(cheaper by the dozen;)), these were some very small ones. The thing that I didn't realize was how fragile these things are:eek:. I broke three before I even went to work on them.:o Worse then working with egg shells.

To make the urchin a little more durable I poured about a 1/2 teaspoon of medium CA inside it and repeatedly turned the Urchin so that the CA coated its entire insides then hit it with accelerator. I could tell that it added a little weight to it but nothing major. Definitely felt sturdier.

The complete ornament is about 5" with a diameter of 1-7/8". The urchin is only about 7/8" thick. Finial and icicle are Black Cherry. One coat of CA as a sealer on the Cherry then the whole thing was sprayed with Deft lacquer after assembly.

Another thing that I had not noticed on other Urchin ornament posts was the "saddle" shape at the larger opening, top in the photo. The 2nd photo shows a differnt angle and makes it look non symmetrical. I may reverse the orientation of the urchin in the next on and see how that looks.
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As always C&C welcomed.

[Tom Wilson66]

Have made a few of these, and think yours are very good. They are certainly fragile. I have made them a lot stronger by filling them with the spray foam used to insulate door and window frames. I once dropped one from about three feet onto a concrete floor after filling it with the foam, and it bounced but did not break.
Haven't figured out a good way to make the joint look good at the saddle on the pink urchins. Maybe someone on the forum knows of a good way to make this attachment look nice, and will share with us. The larger purple and green urchins don't have this saddle and are easier to make neat attachments to the finials.

[Nate Davey]

Beautiful work James. The icicle and top really accent the urchin!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Good looking ornament James.

[Baxter Smith]

Looks good JD. I have collected a few off the beach for such things but haven't gotten around to trying it.