The Helicopter

Well I actually was able to fix my mistake sort of. I am not happy about my screw up but grateful I was able to fix the mistake. On an earlier post I said that I used a table saw to cut the groove when I should have used a band saw. To fix my mistake I had to cut out the middle section of the helicopters and replace it with a strip of birch. I then re-cut the groove using the scroll saw (which worked much better). The wood was given to me from a coworker who likes to turn wood. He ordered some blanks on-line and gave me the "packing material". It turned out to be Huckleberry. It is a nice green grained wood that smells funny. (Each wood has a unique smell one of my favorites is walnut.) The picture doesn't show the beauty of the wood that well.

Despite my mistake it turned out good and I have patterns to duplicate them. There is a lot of angles on the helicopter which were not that bad, probably because I had done the bi-planes earlier. The only tricky part was the pontoons and cutting grooves equally spaced. Making Heirloom Toys does a good job on showing how to do this. They suggested glue and I taped the dowels together. I used a scroll saw to cut the propellers I am getting better but is is pretty obvious they are not balanced.