Rhino

Today was my own so just relaxed in the workshop and spent about 4hours working on the rhino,having a cappucino and chewing the cud whilst carving ,some good music on turned of the phone to get down to the carving.

Messed about with some rams horn,cutting to size for its 1st horn.noticed that the horn was reddy pink when i filed it back ,its a sign that the ram had been fighting and had caused a blood clot in the horn oftern ruins the horn by leaving a defect there.so hope i can polish it out?

changed the way i was mounting it so had to plug a hole i had made and filled it with a plug and a mixture of sawdust and wood glue.and redrilled it with a with a spade bit then a 8mm drill bit to attach the threaded rod.

The shank is out of true and need toget it straight so will have to spend some time with the heat gun

its getting there

more work needed on shaping the horn and back of the head ,eyes needs a fiddle but getting there slowly

Yes i will be keeping the horns the natural colour, just been tidying it up at the moment reduces the back of its head ,trying to get the hoen to sit correctly .Will have to reduce the size of the horn slighly and improve on its shape.The eyes need adjusting before i insert glass one.

The tip of the horn is quite red due to a blood clot so when the shape is right i will try to polish it out .The horn will have to flow into the head of the animal without any gaps but should achieve it

Just to shoew how red the horn is a couple of photos,still needs more work yet

Just hope it will polish up okay

I do not know if this would work for you. But when I need a small eye for a bird or animal I have used the small pins with the round plastic tops used in sewing. They come in a number of colors and sizes. I drill a hole just a little bit smaller than the size of the pin head with a round burr. Then snip the pin about a1/4 inch from the head. Put a touch of glue on the back and push it in. The pin holds it in place as the glue dry's . I mostly use black adding a touch of paint for the center of the eye. Works well with basswood and other soft woods. It is not as good with hard woods.

Hadnt thought about pins i did ask the wife there are a few kicking about but the wrong colour .these seem ideal for some of our small british birds such as the robin and wren ,tits and finches.

So will shop around locally for them .

The eyes i send for are pretty expensive and they have a mimmum delivery charge so usually get a few for futer use so it will make a sizeable saving

Also MJC uses beads and have been looking around for those as well so both iuggestions are very useful and very cost effective

Hve inserted some eyes on the rhino today didnt like the whole eye so used a bit of epoxy resin to give the animal a eye lid so only about 2/3rds show have yet to tidy it up .trouble is it dries in 7 mins and it was the 1st time i tried it so have a bit of tidying up to do on it

hopefully when i paint it it will cover aliright .The horn also needs buffing up did a bit on it before i mounted it but had to sand back to get the wood and the horn to blend in well.

nearly finished just a coat of varnish to put on.

I mixed some raw sienna in with the gray paint to tone the gray back but it didnt really show when paint dried