Right wing secondaries and coverts

     Good, productive afternoon!  First, I thinned the wings in the area of the secondary flight feathers, which was necessary to give a realistic look to the rear edge of the wings.  Then, I worked using various bits to define the secondary flight feathers on the top and bottom of the wing, as well as the edges of the primary and secondary coverts (the feathers that cover the long shafts of the major flight feathers.  Doesn't sound like much when I write this, but it was about three hours of steady work.

    The late afternoon sun provided a good source of sharp shadows, so I positioned the wings in the table when I was done for the day, and took some photos.  The top photo shows the underside of the right wing, and the viewer can appreciate (I hope) how the primary flight feathers slide underneath the secondary feathers as the wing is folded.  The ugly-looking bulge on the wing near the bay will soon be the tertiary feathers, which I call the underarm feathers".  These are not flight feathers, and are not anchored to any bones of the arm.  They partially fill in the gap between the secondary feathers and the body when the wings are spread wide.

    The photo below shows the top of the right wing, and agin the viewer can see how the primaries are in the process of tucking themselves under the secondaries.  In a perching bird, only the tips of the primary feathers can usually be seen; the wing feathers that show the most are the secondaries and their coverts.

    Slowly but surely, the carving is starting to resemble a real bird.  Remember that these pictures show a work in progress, so the finished product will be much neater.

    Three hours today and two hours the other day that I didn't record, for a running total of 37 hours.

Right wing primaries

     I spent some time out on the bench today, thinning the body, further defining the legs, and starting to carve the wing feathers.  I started on the right wing, for no particular reason.  First, I used a flat-end carbide cylinder bit to define the overlaps on the upper and lower surfaces, and refined the shapes of the feather tips to reflect what I have studied on the plans and in images I have collected.  I then used a flame-shaped bit to shape the bodies of the feathers, and thin the ends.  The result is shown in the photos below.

    The carving is still quite rough, but I have proven to myself that I can still do feathers.  The wing is a little thick, but I think I can reduce the thickness, especially at the feather tips and edges.  I plan to thin the wing in the area of the secondary flight feathers, since they, like the primaries, are in a part of the wing that is only one feather thick.

Undersides of wings

     I realized yesterday that my hesitation in starting to carve the wing feathers was due to the fact that I had not yet drawn the feathers on the underside of the wings.  The ends of the primary and secondary flight feathers are on their own, out there along the trailing edge of the wing, where the wing is only one feather thick.  The carved edges of these feathers obviously have to match up on the opposing wing surfaces, accounting the the overlap between adjacent feathers.  In order to make sure that the shapes and orientations of these feathers are correct, I needed to draw the feather patterns on the underside of the wings, before I started to carve anything.  This is a lesson I had learned from my Archaeopteryx carving, but had apparently forgotten.

    Below are several images of bird wings, showing the arrangements of the major feather groups.  Wings are complex structures, with feather shapes and orientations adapted to the feather positions and roles. For example, the first photo shows the variations in shape of eagle primary feathers, from the tip (left) to the mid-wing area (right).

    The next image shows the reason for the distinction between primary and secondary wing feathers.  The primary feathers attach to the bones of the hand, and the secondary feather attach to the forearm bones.  Tertiary feathers (not shown in the diagram) attach to the skin overlying the upper arm, but are not attached to bones as are the primary and secondary feathers.  On my carving, some tertiary feathers will be located in the "underarm" areas at the base of the wings.  Notice how the feathers are numbered.  Each feather has its own number.  The primaries (usually ten) are numbered from the innermost outwards; the secondaries are numbered from the outmost inward.  This numbering reflects the molting pattern, which begins with the inner primary and outer secondary.

    The shafts of the primary and secondary feathers are covered by feathers called "coverts".  There may be several distinguishable rows of these on bird wings, depending on the species.  The images below shows how the feather groups relate to each other.

    The alula, or "little wing" consists of a few feathers attached to the nearly vestigial digit corresponding to our thumb.  On my Archaeopteryx carving, this was an unfeathered claw; on modern birds, the feathered alula helps the bird maintain lift while flying at slow speeds, much like the flaps on the wing of an aircraft.

    I include all this detail to explain what is involved in drawing and carving bird wing feathers and getting it right.  A random feather pattern carved or painted on a bird wing might look nice, but I take my carving seriously and want my partially folded osprey wings to appear accurate even to an expert birder or falconer.  Hence, all my fussing.

    The photo below, which I just took, shows my efforts this morning in drawing the feathers on the underside of the osprey's wings.  I am glad I took the time to do this, because the tips of the primary feathers need to be shaped a little more to conform to both the pattern I purchased and the images I have collected.  The shaded areas on the wings represent wood that will be trimmed away to better represent the delicate free ends of the primaries.

    Lastly, I got in the mail yesterday from MDI Woodcarvers a set of six new carving burrs of various shapes (ball, flame, cylinder, "stump cutter". etc.) made of carbide steel.  These will be perfect for carving the feather detail.  Their cutting edges leave a relatively smooth surface behind, reducing the amount of sanding.

    Time to get to work!

    Including the time spent this morning drawing, erasing, and redrawing feathers, I worked about two more hours, for a total of 32.

Practice

I spent a few hours out on the picnic table today, practicing how to carve the wing and body feathers.  I have done this before, but did not document how I did it, or which of the various power carving bits I used for what.  I essentially had to figure it out again, by trial and error.  I decided that the trial and error should be done on scrap wood, and not the carving itself.  I drew some feather patterns on pieces of pine from my woodbox, and worked on defining them using carving burrs of various shapes and materials.  I could tell which ones I had used, because they had wood residue on them.

 

After about an hour of fiddling around, I had a plan for how to address the wings on the carving.  I did decide, however, that the wings needed to be thinner than they were to make the feather carving more realistic.  I spent another hour or so gradually thinning the wings using a sanding bit, which was efficient at removing wood and had the additional benefit of leaving the surface relatively smooth.  I thinned the wings from the underside, because I had already drawn the feather pattern on the dorsal surface and didn’t want to draw it again.

A good session, not much real progress toward a finished carving, but reminding myself how to define feathers by working on some scrap wood was worth it.

No new pictures, sorry.  30 hours in.

Wings, head, and tail refinements; feathers

    I spent a few hours on the back patio today, making more sawdust.  The wing thickness is getting close to where I want it to be, but I discovered an error in the wings that needs to be addressed tomorrow.  I made the area covered by the secondaries and their coverts a little too big, a realization I came to as soon as I started drawing the feather patterns.  More on that a little later below.  First, carving progress.

    Using the plans I had purchased, I redrew head and body profiles from above and from the side, identifying wood that should be removed, and starting thinning out the body and defining the shape of the head.  This is a little scary, because the head comes to a point at the end of the beak, making that area susceptible to breakage if finished too soon.  Shaping the head helped me with the legs, giving them more definition along their length before they disappear into the plumage of the body.  I also refined the tail and trimmed back the border between the tail feathers and the contour feathers on the back and belly, to conform more closely to the purchased plans.

    Below are some photos from today.  In the first photo, the rough shape of the beak can be seen.  There is a very pronounced hook, which could be easily broken because the curve passes across the grain.

    The next photo below shows the thinned body anterior to the wings, the beginnings of the small feathered crest behind the head, and the shaped tail with a corrected border between tail feathers and body contour feathers.

    

    The last of this set of photos, below, shows the much reduced wing thickness, and the improvements around the areas where the wings meet the body.  Pay attention for a moment to the raised, curved areas on each of the wings, which will be addressed below.

    I made my first attempt at drawing the feathers on the dorsal surface of the wings, basing the feather pattern on the plan I had purchased and an especially clear photo from my "osprey reference" collection.  Below is a photo of the feather pattern I came up with.

    The mistake I referred to above had to do with the border between the primaries and secondaries.  In the third photo above, the curved, raised border defines the edge of the secondaries and their coverts, as the primary flight feathers are being tucked up underneath them during the dive.  It turns out that I made the "curve" a little too wide; it should curve around more sharply and point towards the bend on the leading edge of the wrist.  

    Why is this important?  The secondary flight feathers attach to the forearm, and the primary flight feathers attach to the bones of the hand.  The wrist (located at the sharp bend in the leading edge of the wing) marks the separation between the origins of the primary and secondary wing feathers.  Naturally, the overlapping border between the primaries and secondaries should end somewhere near the wrist.  I'm not sure how I missed this, but I am glad I caught this error before I finalized the wing thickness, since after that there would have been no way to correct it.  The drawing correctly shows the feather patterns on the right and left wings sweeping around and heading toward the wrist area of the leading edge of the wing.  Tomorrow, I will re-carve the overlapping border and locate it correctly.  I will have to re-draw the feather patterns in this area, but that's not a problem.

    This may seem like small potatoes, and few people viewing the carving will be knowledgable enough about wing feathers to notice anything wrong, but judges in a carving contest easily spot mistakes like this.  Since I will enter this carving in the next Spirit of Wood Show in October (if I get it done!?), I want the feather pattern to be correct.  Actually, who am I kidding?  Whether I enter the carving in a contest or not, I want the feather pattern to be correct.

    Each step in this carving marks progress of one sort or another, however gradual. But, somehow, drawing the feather pattern on the wings seemed like a really big step that changed the appearance of the carving and the impression it makes.  When I eventually carve out the feather outlines with a fine point carving bit, the pattern will become part of the wing, not just a series of pencil lines.

    I worked about four hours today, including the time spent drawing of the feather outlines, for a running total of 26 hours.   This is actually going a little faster than I thought it would!

Carving in the rain

    I took a chance this morning and started carving outside under overcast skies.  I was able to carve for about 30 minutes before the rain started.  Packed everything up, came back into the house, ran a few errands, walked a few miles on the treadmill, had a little lunch, and - guess what?  The skies cleared and I went back out.   

    I had a good carving session today.  The wings are getting thinner, so I have to be more careful about how much wood I take off.  I am mindful of what the final shape of the wings and body will be, and have to approach it more slowly, the closer I get.  I have to remember to leave enough thickness to be able to define the primary and secondary flight feathers, as well as the coverts.  Some feather groups in certain location (base of the wings, alula, etc.) stand out from the body, so I have to keep in mind where these are and leave a little extra wood in those locations for final shaping.

    I spent time today on the legs, which are harder to define than I thought they would be.  I think I am getting close, though; as the legs get thinner, the relationship between their contours and that of the belly is becoming clearer and it also becomes easier to get my carving bits into the spaces around the extended legs.  Speaking of the legs - I have a meeting of my local carving group on Tuesday, and I might prepare for that meeting by making blanks for the claws, and carving them to shape while chatting with my carving friends.  After the claws are carved to shape, I will insert wires into the bases of the claws, twist the wires together to create the shapes of the feet, and start adding epoxy clay to create the pads and scales.

    I find that I can only hold the power carving tool for a little more than an hour, before I have to take a break.  My fingers get sore, and I develop a tingling feeling that takes a while to go away.  During a carving break this afternoon, I did some planting of perennial seedlings I have been growing in little peat pots, to add some colorful ground cover out front in between the tulips, daisies, sedums, and whatever else I have planted out there over the years.

    Below are a few photos of the carving after today's work.  It almost seems like little has changed, but the layer of sawdust on the picnic table and on me indicates that wood has certainly been removed!  The first two pictures show how the thicknesses of the left and right wings are almost the same, and that the shape of the flanks and tail have been refined some.

    The next two photos show the underside, with the newly thinned legs protruding from the plumage of the belly.  The feathers on the legs and belly will help define the legs even more, because of the differences in feather type and orientation between the legs and body.

    The last photo shows the top side of the carving from above.  This is the view that prompted me to do the carving in the first place, and it is a very dynamic pose.  The primaries near the wing tips are in the process of being tucked in under the secondaries in anticipation of hitting the water.  This is indicated by the curved line or ridge on the top of the wing, where the secondaries and their coverts on top, and the primaries are sliding underneath them.  I can't wait to start drawing in the feather groups, as soon as the shape, thickness, and curvature of the wings are finalized.  The osprey has a small crest, and I have left room on the head profile to add the feathers comprising the crest, giving a little drama to the head.  Once I have made the feet, I will drill a hole in the ends of the leg stumps, and put the feet in place whenever I take these progress photos. The extended feet and claws will add an additional element of drama, for sure.

    After the feather groups are drawn in, they will be shaped with smaller carving bits to give either fluffiness or stiffness (I am learning how to do both effects), and the shafts and barbs of the primaries and secondaries will be defined using my woodturning tool.  That work can be done inside the house using my Tornado 1000 dust-collecting carving hood, the same one I used for defining the feathers on the Archaeopteryx carving.  The burning can be done there, too, because the hood will trap any smoke produced by my wood burner.  Still lots of carving to do before I get to that point, though.

    Maybe four hours total today, for a total of about 22 hours.

Refining left wing shape

     I spent three hours today out at the picnic table refining the shape of the left wing and doing some work on the body.  The wing is getting thinner, finally, as I am taking a few millimeters at a time off the upper and lower surfaces.  I don't want it to be too thin, but also want it to be realistic.  The thicknesses of the leading edge and trailing edge are what really count, and the body of the wing could be a little thicker than on the actual bird and the observer may not even know.

    I also worked on the body, especially on the underside where the outstretched legs extend from the body.  I have photos that show this area in a diving osprey, but carving it is another matter entirely.  The legs are surprisingly thin, and I am working slowly toward getting them the proper thickness.  The body also still has a blockiness to it, and I have to carve away some wood to give the proper shape to the neck, breast area, and the rear towards the tail.  Slowly but surely, still my mantra.

    In the photos below, the differences in shape and thickness of the left and right wings can be appreciated.  The right wing tip is still 1.5" thick, the thickness of the two boards I glued together for the wing blank.  I still have a lot more wood to remove!

     The carving is taking shape.  I know the osprey is in there, I just have to let him out.  Sounds corny, doesn’t it?

    Three hours today, 18 hours total.

Carving progress

    I have made some good progress on my osprey carving.  I have been using my power carving tools over the last day or two, working outside on the picnic bench in the sun and fresh air.  Well, as much fresh air and sun as I can get through my N95 respirator, safety glasses, and ear protectors.

    I think gluing the wings to the body was a good idea, since I have found over the last two days of carving that I need the perspective of the whole bird to determine if I am shaping the parts correctly.  I started yesterday doing general shaping on the body and wings, but today I focused on only the left wing.  Why?  I wanted to see more progress, more quickly.  I figured that working on one wing would give me a sense of accomplishment and would provide a template of sorts for working on the other side.

    In the dive photos I have collected, it seems like the wings curve up and away from the body initially, go through an arc between the shoulder and wrist, and then go almost straight back as the primaries are being tucked in under the secondaries and their coverts.  I have decided to give a little upsweep to the tips of the primaries, like I did on the outward wing of the Archaeopteryx carving, but make this more pronounced.  It will add a little more life and dynamism to the carving.

   There is a lot of wood to remove to reveal the wing curvature as I envision it.  The wing blanks were two 3/4" select pine boards glued together, resulting in a flat shape 1.5" thick.  This thickness allows me to carve in the curvature, but the final wing thickness will be only about 1/4", meaning that I have to remove 1.25" of wood here and there along the wing from the tip and bottom of the wing blank to achieve the shape I want.  The wing thickness will be less along the leading edge and much less for the trailing primary and secondary wing feathers.  Lots of sawdust, which I am tracking into the house when I come inside for a bathroom break or a snack.

    Below are some photos I took this afternoon, at the end of my work period.  I spent about 5 hours yesterday, and four more today, for about 9 hours of carving already.  Adding to that total the drawing of the patterns, the cutting and gluing of the wing and body blanks, and putting the whole thing together, I maybe have 15 hours of work into this project already.  I plan to keep track of the hours, which I have never done on a carving or ship model.  Not sure why, just curious.  "How long did that take to carve?" is a common question at carving shows, so I will be ready.

    In the first photo, the difference between the thickness ion the partially shaped left wing tip and the blocky, full-thickness right wing tip is clear.  On both wings, the curved dip across the center of the wing will eventually define the edge of the wing coverts.  Also, the long primary flight feathers will fold under the secondary flight feathers as the wing closes, and I have started to represent this by carving the upper surface of the primaries at the end of the wing on a lower plane than that of the secondaries, closer to the body.

In the next photo, the curve of the wing from the body to the wrist can be seen in two dimensions - the outline of the wing from above that I cut with the saber saw, and the curvature of the wing as seen from the front of the bird.  I did some shaping on the outstretched legs and head, but will leave the detail in this area until later.

   The third photo below, taken from above, shows the general feather shape on the left wing, and the initial shaping I did on the tail.  The little flare of the left wingtip can even be seen. The osprey's wings, when folded, extend well beyond the tail, unlike many birds.  An osprey's wings are large and specialized for heavy-duty powered flight, allowing them to hover before diving (which most hawks can't do) and take off from the water with the added weight of a fish after a successful dive.  Sometimes an osprey is completely submerged after grabbing its prey, and must return to the surface, shake off the excess water, and lift itself up into the air from a complete, water-soaked stop.  Not an easy task.  According to some of the videos I have watched, sometimes ospreys drown if the fish they catch is too heavy.  Apparently, the curved claws and other foot adaptations that are so good at catching and holding onto prey are not so good at letting the prey go in an emergency situation in the water.

    The last photo, below, shows the underside of the carving, with the crudely shaped (at this point) extended legs.  The legs are incomplete at this point, and consist only of the thigh (which is hidden by the body contour feathers) and the shin down to the ankle (the visible part).  The non-feathered and scaly foot, consisting of the tarsus and claws that I will make out of epoxy clay over a wire frame, will extend past the end of the beak.  At the very end of the dive, just before the bird strikes the water, the claws are right in front of the osprey's head, and it is almost as if the osprey is using the extended and flared claws as a sighting mechanism in conjunction with its binocular vision, looking through and past the claws towards the intended target, usually an unsuspecting fish. 

    As usual, with these carvings and with my ship models, the research and the facts I learn about the subject of my work are fascinating and enriching.  I found myself getting inpatient today as I carved, because the progress was slow with all the wood I had to remove, but I have to resist the urge to hurry and to focus on getting the details right.

    More to come.  Oh yes - I mentioned in my last post that I might mount this carving on a vertical base that would be hung on a wall.  I changed my mind about this, because the back of the bird would not be readily visible.  Using a mirror in the wall mount to show the underside seems a little gimmicky.  So, for now I am back to a base that will allow the carving to be viewed from any angle.  The carving will most likely be supported by a clear Plexiglas dowel, or something similar.  A real pro would carve a base that looked like the surface of a pond, and have one of the diving osprey's claws just touching the water.  Hidden inside the lower leg and the claw that touches the water would be a stiff brass rod that would support the full weight of the carving.  The bird would seem magically suspended at the point of contact with the water.  Hmmm.  Still time to think about this.  After all, I did something similar with the Archaeopteryx carving, since the bird is in a running pose with only one leg touching the ground.

    Fifteen hours in, and counting.

Screwed and glued together

     I hope it wasn't a mistake, but I couldn't wait and this morning I screwed and glued the wings in place.  My rationalization is that I can now sculpt the body and wings together as a unit and achieve better and more realistic integration.  I will work slowly, transforming the clunky, thick shape into a more realistically slim bird.  Slowly, slowly -  that will be my mantra while carving.

    The screws visible in the photo below of the top of the carving will be removed tomorrow, after allowing the glue to dry for 24 hours.  I will then drive dowels into the screw holes, to reduce the need for wood filler.  I wish I could have put in the screws from the belly side, but the geometry and the thickness of the body piece would have made that very difficult.

    From the photos above, the general configuration of the carving is discernible.  The larger squares on the green grid are 1", so the wingspan, even with the wings partially folded, is close to two feet.

    The boys were over today (it's Mother's Day, after all) and one of them asked how I planned to display the carving.  He suggested that having it mounted on the wall would be the best way to both accentuate the action inherent in the carving and disguise the mounting mechanism.  I will keep that in mind, especially since we are running out of display space in our house because of ship models on shelves and carvings on tables.

    I have drawn on the anterior edge of the wing blanks an outline to guide my initial shaping of the wings.  I will first focus on the area where the wings meet the back of the bird, using photographs of diving osprey as a guide to the surface configuration in this area.

    It seems like it has a taken a long time to get to the stage of actually carving, but it has not really been that long, about a week.  I have just been thinking or agitating about this or that, and that makes it all seem longer.

Rough cut-outs of wings and body

    I made some progress today on the carving.  I unclamped the wings, which had dried since Wednesday, and separated the two wings from each other.  I had clamped them together, to save a little time.  I was a little worried about glue seeping out of the plane between each of the two wing halves, and getting into the plane separating the two wings from each other.  A little of this did happen, and I had to use a broad-bladed screwdriver and a mallet to pop the two wings apart.  No harm done, no splintering or breakage.  Phew.

    I took the wing blanks and the two body halves out back to the picnic table, where I could clamp them securely for sawing out the patterns drawn on each.  I used my saber saw with a brand-new blade, and it worked like a charm, making smooth cuts through the various pieces, each 1.5" thick.  I cut generously on the outside of the pattern lines, giving me room to carve back down to the proper profiles.

    As planned, I did some power carving on the two body halves, narrowing the body toward the head and beak, as well as along the rump to the base of the tail.  I stayed away from the area where the wings will be attached to the body, wanting to leave these areas flat and orthogonal so the wing bases would fit nicely.  I separated the legs on each half, and then glued the two body halves together.

    Below are some photos of the process, starting with the two wings being glued together.

    The next few photos show the wing cut-outs placed near the two body halves clamped together while the glue dries.  This is my first glimpse at the general shape and size of the carving.  It looks, of course, very clunky at the moment, but I am happy that from here on, most of the work will be carving and not planning, measuring, test fitting pieces, etc.

    I should probably work on the wings before they are attached to the body, but part of me says that the carving will be better if all the parts are glued in place.  I can carve the transitions more smoothly so that the locations of the numerous joints will be less apparent or not apparent at all.  The wing shape when viewed from the front is gull-like, with several curves and the osprey-specific gull-like wing, and the best way to get this right might be to carve the wings after they have been attached.  That is why I doubled up the pine boards for the wings, to give me enough thickness to carve in these curves. The carving weighs a few pounds, so handling it might be somewhat difficult, but on the other hand the weight will add stability while carving.

    Mounting the wings will probably require the temporary use of screws, because clamping will be hard to do.  After the glue is dry, I can remove the screws, fill the screw hole with a dowel, and carve away.  Any remaining signs of seams can be addressed with wood putty, although I wanted to avoid using that at all.  Nothing wrong with it, it is just the principle of the thing.  

    Tomorrow may be more carving, or gluing, depending on what I decide to do.

Preparing wing and body sections

    Because I do not have a band saw, I have to build up the body and wing sections by laminating together pieces of 3/4" thick white pine.  This is somewhat time consuming, but if properly glued, the pieces will become very carvable blocks of wood with no gaps or seams.  The profiles I developed from the plans and photos are shown below.

    The upper profile is a side view of the body, with the legs extended.  The lower part of the foot with the toes will be made separately from epoxy clay over a wire armature.  The portion of the legs in the profile represent the feathered part of the leg, which will be carved out of wood, and the foot and toes sculpted from epoxy clay will insert into the ends of the carved wood stumps.  The spread toes will eventually extend just past the end of the beak.  All the above body profile shows is the wood part.

    The lower profile in the photo above shows the configuration of the partially folded wing.  It was based on several of the photos of diving osprey as well as the plumage details from the plans I bought.  I went through several iterations at the drawing board before I was happy with it.  I will use the same profile for the left and right wings, but they may vary somewhat when I carve the curvature of the wing and the feather detail.  The photo below shows the pattern traced on each wing with the wings meeting at the midline.  For reference, the boards are 8.5" wide and 14" long.  Because the wings are folded, the full half-scale wingspan of more than two feet (4-5 feet in the real bird) cannot be fully appreciated.

    The body itself will have four laminated layers, two on the right and two on the left.  Why?  The body in the half-size plans is about three inches wide, and four 3/4" laminations will take care of the full width.  In advance of any gluing and carving, I labeled the four pine blanks that will become the body profiles as outer right, inner right, inner left, and outer left.  The inner left and inner right blanks were drilled to accept two 3/16" dowels to hold them together in proper alignment when the two sides of the body are ultimately glued together.  After drilling these holes, the inner and outer left pieces and the inner and outer right pieces were glued together.  This stepwise approach - one body half at a time - was necessary for me to be able to carve and define the legs on each side separately.  The legs extend from the hip joints to a point underneath, but somewhat lateral to, the head, and the separation of the legs from the body would be difficult to achieve if the body were a solid block.  

    The legs are not extended straight out from the hips, parallel to the long axis of the body.  Instead, they extend forward and somewhat toward the midline, so that the clawed feet can be close together and form an eight-clawed, deadly fish trap positioned right in front of the bird's eyes.  I have seen somewhere a photograph taken from directly in front of an attacking osprey (probably through a telephoto lens), and the combination of the clawed feet, sharp beak, and yellow staring eyes is really scary.  I wouldn't want to be a fish in the sights of a diving osprey!

    Once the legs are defined and roughed out, I will glue the two body halves together so I can carve the head and tail.  This seemed to me to be the best approach, and took me a few 4.5-mile walks around Thornton Heights and through Calvary Cemetery to figure out.  I imagined each step of the carving, and the piecemeal approach I have been outlining seemed to be the best way to accomplish what I wanted.  Here is one of the body halves being glued together this afternoon.

    I used every clamp I had.  I later made a trip to Home Depot and bought a few more clamps, so I could provide an evenly distributed compressive force over a wider area when I clamp the two layers of the wings together.  Why a laminated wing with two layers?  The wings have a noticeable curvature when viewed from the front; they rise a little from the body from the shoulder joint to the equivalent of the bird's elbow, dip down between the elbow and the wrist, then rise up again from the wrist to the tips of the wings.  The S-shape of this curvature can just about be accommodated within the 1.5" thickness of the laminated wing pieces.  

    When the profiles are cut from the two body halves and the two wings, the 4" flat portion of the body profile along the back will be the attachment point for the wings on each side.  Again, I won't glue the wings to the body halves until I have done a considerable amount of thinning of the wings and shaping the curves.  It will be easier to carve and shape each wing while it is still separate from the body than it would be if I tried to carve with the whole assembly glued together.  It is a big carving, and handling it would be awkward.  It is hard to describe what I am trying to do, and I am sorry if it is not clear, but the approach will become evident as I proceed with the carving.

    In an attempt to summarize:  I will shape and define the legs on each of the two body halves; I will glue the body halves together to allow carving and definition of the head and tail; I will shape the right and left wing profiles to produce the curves described above; I will glue the wings to the body halves; and then I will glue the body halves together.  At this point, most of the major shaping and definition of the various body parts should be done, except for around the glue joints.  I will smooth out these areas so the joints are not obvious, and then the detail carving can begin.  This point will be probably not be achieved until sometime in July!  I am in no rush, because I want this to be a good carving.

    Because of a half-day with grandchildren tomorrow, I will probably not do too much more on the project until Thursday.  Stay tuned.

Beginnings

     I am starting something new here.  It's a blog, but not one about a ship model.  I am taking a little break from scale model ships and am embarking on a new, rather ambitious carving - a half-size diving osprey!  This will be my first carving blog, perhaps the first in a series if all goes well.

    As part of my research on feathers and wings during the time I was carving my Archaeopteryx, I encountered photographs of many large birds of prey, among them ospreys.  Some of the images of diving ospreys really caught my attention, because of the fearsome appearance of the birds, with their legs extended past their heads and their clawed toes spread in anticipation of grabbing an unsuspecting fish just below the water's surface.  Below are a few examples of the images that caught my attention.

 

    Just as I wanted a realistic, active pose for my Archaeopteryx carving, if I did this carving I wanted the first impression of this new carving to be striking.  I have collected dozens of photos of diving osprey from various angles, and have chosen a pose like those shown in the pictures above, with legs extended and wings partially folded in anticipation of hitting the water.  Stop-motion photography and slow motion videos reveal how the osprey prepares for the strike as it speeds downward toward the water, and will help the reader to understand how I chose this pose.

    The lowermost image in the composite photo above, showing the tightly folded wings, is probably most indicative of the osprey's diving method, but the triangular shape of the folded wings would be hard to portray realistically, at least for me with my current carving skills.  I fear it would look too much like a cartoon and would be hard for a viewer not familiar with osprey hunting technique to understand.  On the other hand, a carving consistent with the upper images, with the wings spread and the feet not yet extended, could simply portray a flying osprey as well as an osprey early in a dive.  I decided to take the middle road, and carve the pose in the second image from the bottom, with wings beginning to fold (and therefore not flapping) and with feet nearly fully extended.  Very dynamic, clearly an attack pose, and easier to understand.

    What would be my references? In additions to the images I have collected, I have obtained two valuable references.  The first is a set of plans for a half-size osprey, flying with a fish in its claws, shown below.

  This is a very different pose from what I envision, obviously, but the plans are still valuable because they provide detail about body proportions, head and beak shape, and (most importantly) feather patterns on the wings and body.  Since this is a modern bird, with which any judges at carving shows will be familiar, the feathering has to be correct.  I had considerable leeway when carving my Archaeopteryx, since no one has ever seen one of these creatures.  All the data I had to go on were feather impressions on a fossil and the opinions of paleontologists about the wing and body plumage.  Who could say my interpretation was wrong?  Not this time, though.  I have to be accurate, rather, I actually want to be as accurate as I can in this carving.

    My second primary source will be a great book I discovered, one of the Workbench Projects series published by the Wildfowl Carving magazine folks.  Images of this book are shown below.

    Again, the rather passive sitting pose does not match my "diving osprey" idea, but the carving detail is extensive, with techniques for producing properly fluffy contour feathers and appropriately stiff-looking flight feathers.  What will really be helpful, though, is the information about painting the carving.  The author provides a color palette and detailed instructions about the appropriate colors for the plumage on the breast, mantel, tail, and wings.  The fine points of shading, color blending, and highlighting are all addressed in detail.  A sample page in the painting section is shown below.

    I am confident that I can produce a reasonably good carving from the photos, plans, and book, and hope to spend many hours over the summer at the picnic table in the back yard, generating sawdust.  I will use primarily power carving tools, because the arthritis in my fingers makes hand carving awkward and sometimes painful.  I used power carving for my Archaeopteryx, and that turned out well, generating an article in the Wildfowl Carving magazine and a major award at the 2021 New England Wood Carvers "Spirit of Wood" show.  Even if I don't have the same success here, the diving Osprey carving will be fun to do.  

    I am not sure where to put it once it is done, however.  Even a half-size osprey carving will have a wingspan of about two feet, a pretty big carving.  That is a problem I will not have to face for months, however - I have to finish the carving first!

    I am heading out to the garage today to start cutting the pieces for the body, feet, wings, and tail.  I have drawn profiles and outlines for these, based on the sources I described above.  I do not have a band saw, so I will use my 3D jigsaw puzzle method to assemble the necessary parts from 3/4" thick, select northern white pine boards.  I will use dowels to attach the wings to the body, but will not do that until I have carved much of the wing and body detail first.  Once I glue the wings in place, I will address the areas where the wings and body meet, and will try to generate smooth plumage transitions and thereby avoid the look that bird carvings sometimes have, in which the wings appear to have been carved separately and then simply stuck onto the body.

    More to come, for sure.  Wish me luck.