Weekend project with new bandsaw

[Dave MacArthur]

This past weekend I made these 8" toy fish (shark & bass) for my sons. Just a wee project to help me get used to the bandsaw after not using one much for many years.

I've built much fancier stuff, but I must admit--not much has made me feel better about my woodworking than the enthusiasm and happiness I got from my 3 & 4 year old sons from this project! You can see their enthusiasm is already taking a toll on the fins...
Made from basswood.

[Curt Harms]

This past weekend I made these 8" toy fish (shark & bass) for my sons. Just a wee project to help me get used to the bandsaw after not using one much for many years.

I've built much fancier stuff, but I must admit--not much has made me feel better about my woodworking than the enthusiasm and happiness I got from my 3 & 4 year old sons from this project! You can see their enthusiasm is already taking a toll on the fins...
Made from basswood.

Hard to think of a more worthy use of a new acquisition:D. Very Good!!!


Curt

[Larry Fox]

Those are awesome!!!!! :) Very cool.

[John Revilla]

The wood craftsmanship was great enough ten you topped it off with a life-like finish! Awesome! I just got my bandsaw too and I wish I'll develop such skill. Godspeed.

[Doug Pettway]

very nice job indeed.

i agree about building things for the little ones. for every project i do for me, my soon-to-be step daughter of 5 years old gets two projects. :)

[Alan Tolchinsky]

First there were bandsaw boxes. Now we see bandsaw fish. They look great!

[Basil Rathbone]

I just got a new BS too but wouldn't know where to start to make something like your fish. Can you let us know a little bit more about how you went about it? Thanks.

Basil

[Jim Becker]

Very kewel work!!! Those look great!!

[Andy Korfin]

can you give any hints as to how you went about creating these ?

andy


This past weekend I made these 8" toy fish (shark & bass) for my sons. Just a wee project to help me get used to the bandsaw after not using one much for many years.

I've built much fancier stuff, but I must admit--not much has made me feel better about my woodworking than the enthusiasm and happiness I got from my 3 & 4 year old sons from this project! You can see their enthusiasm is already taking a toll on the fins...
Made from basswood.

[Dave MacArthur]

can you give any hints as to how you went about creating these ?

andy

Sure ;) Thanks for asking.

I started with a 1" thick plank of basswood, about 10" long and 3-4" high. I have one of those field guides to fish, for fish identification, with sideview drawings, so I lay the book on a copier and "zoom" copy the thing up to about 8" length. I then sprayed my plank with some sandpaper fixative (rubber cement? can't remember the name, for affixing sandpaper disks before velcro came about...), and slap the xerox copy onto the wood.

On the bandsaw, I cut the outline of the fish, including all the fins. I used a 1/8" blade. I then turn the fish "vertical" like you would for resawing, and cut a curved fish out of the plank, by making a convex cut on one side and a concave on the other... how much depends on what the picture of the fish was doing, but I tried to make the maximum I could, and still have the thickest part of the body be almost 1" thick. You know, make the head thinner to one side, and cut the tail thinner to the other, so it looks like it is flexing?

I cut the maximum amount of the fins away that I could using the bandsaw, then finished them up with a backsaw.

Then I just shuttled about between a 1" belt sander, a normal belt sander clamped upside down in a vise, a wood rasp, and several chisels and small carving chisels to define the fins more and curve the body from bottom to top. On the shark, the front fins stick out so much that I just cut those out of maple and "mortised" them in about 1/4" using some wood chisels.

Hand sanded with sandpaper folded over a pencil, or small wood block.

I finished the fish with polyurethane first, to seal the wood, then a few hours later I used some acrylic model paints and 2-3 small brushes to paint them up a bit. 30 min later I sprayed them with a clear coat of waterproof hmm something I had in a can... I knew the boys would put them in the water forthwith.

The fish took probably 1.5 hours to make for the wood part (each), and another hour to paint without including drying time. The wood-shaping part was probably 15 min on the bandsaw, 10 min with a small handsaw, and the rest with sanding and chisels. I actually got the boys to sit there the whole time for "their" fish (individually), and help me decide how the curves should go lol. I was actually pretty amazed at how opinionated they each were! I have no idea where they got such strong opinions on how the fish should look, probably Nemo, but they had no problem saying "No!" or "he needs to be more curved there!". A dremel tool with a rasp-ball would have been more efficient, but not as useful to young boys as the basics.

It was their first full day in the shop, and I spent the time talking about all the safety rules for the tools, and cleaning up, how wood grain works with chisels, etc... if they got 1% of it, I'll be happy! They told their mother, when she asked what they had learned, "A good craftsman cleans his shop!", which wasn't exactly what I wanted them reporting to her!

[Andy Korfin]

Thanks for the info dave !

andy