Crafty, DIY wooden turkey lawn decoration

Like most DiY handymen, I often see a wooden craft that I tell myself, I can do that.

     Walking with my wife at a craft fair recently we came across some small wooden turkeys, they were nicely painted, but nothing special enough to justify $50 price tag.  Looking over it, I determined I could build that myself, it was nothing more than two 1/2 inch pieces of plywood that interlocked to form a turkey shape.  My wife held the turkey up to get my opinion and before I know what I was saying, I blurted out the words, "I could make that".  Like so many times before, I meant it, but never really followed through with my side projects.  This time however, she held me to it.  After several months of procrastinating and Thanksgiving less than a month away, I decided to look around the shed for plywood to kick this project off.

The hardest part of this craft for me was to find a simple enough turkey shape that I could transpose to a 3D shape, without over complicating the design.

Just a disclaimer before we get started.  I usually freehand draw most of my templates so there are never exact measurements listed.

Tools needed:

Jig saw (reciprocating saw), Circular saw, Sander, Sharpie, string, straight edge, ruler, eye protection, extension cord

Supplies needed:

1/2" thick plywood, whole or half sheet, (you might want to scale down the size)

Scrap 2x4's (needed to elevate your plywood off the ground while you cut)

First divide the plywood into two sections using the circular saw.

  A 4'x4' section for the feathers.

  A 2.5'x4' section for the body.

( I know it doesn't add up to a full sheet, hence the digging though my shed for scrap plywood.)

Draw a circle on the 4'x4' section.  The string will be your compass.  Tie a knot around the Sharpie with the string, hold the marker in your drawling hand at the edge of the 4'x4', not the corner.  Next place your thumb of the pivot hand in the center with the string between your thumb and the wood.  Start moving the marker around in a circle, keep the string taught, to ensure a fairly decent circle.

   

After the circle is drawn prop your plywood on the 2x4's with enough clearance for the jig saw to clear the ground.  Start to cut out the circle, remember where the 2"x4"'s are, periodically stopping to reposition the plywood as to avoid cutting into the 2"x4"'s is a good idea.  I stood on top of my plywood to keep the splintering to a minimum.

Freehand draw the shapes with the exception of the circle and don't worry about getting it exactly correct.  Imperfections just add character to crafts.

After the 4'x4' section of plywood resembles a circle you will draw a vase shape for the lower half of the circle where the feathers meet the body.  Cut this out and cut small triangular corners out on the top half of the circle.  This will form the feathers.  I cut mine down a bit deeper so they can be moved in front of each other.  I also cut the bottom of the circle off, to have a flat base for the ground.

Next up, cutting the shape of the body.  I drew what resembled a fat duck, with the exception if the "wattle", that red thing that hangs off their beak.  (Yeah I googled the term).

The next step is to draw and cut the cross section so the body and feathers interlock.  I chose to have the feathers tilt about 15 degree towards the back.  For my project I removed a 12" piece from the top of the body cutout and 12" piece from the bottom of the feathers section.

Be especially careful cutting these out.  You don't want to cut the wrong part, plus you really want the two pieces to be somewhat tight fitting.   The gap should be no wider than 1/2" (since we are using 1/2" plywood).  I went down about 12" from the top of the body.

As you can see I was off on the first cut, so I just made sure when I made the second cut, the opening was still only 1/2 inch wide.

After both pieces are cut, see if they fit together.  If they rock you might need to make one or of the previous cuts deeper.  In my case the cross section was fine but I needed to trim the bottom of the feather board to make it sit flat on the ground.  If you did it correctly it should resemble something similar to the picture below.  Sand all cuts.

Note: If you did happen to cut the two pieces too wide you might be able to use a right angle brace or even some strips of 1" wood to tighten up the cross section.  The idea is to have a 3D craft that can also be easily stored, so if try not to make the cross section permanent.  There are plenty of ways to correct small mistakes without having to re-cut the entire board.

Painting the turkey is next up...

NOTE: Before you paint it is a good idea to sand any sharpie lines that might be on the wood.  I learned the hard way that spray paint doesn't cover those unless you put down a thick solid coat of paint first.  I had to spray everything white and start again.

I used spray paint, which I'm still not sure was the best choice.

Not shown was two additional wooden steak I wound up using to secure the turkey on the lawn.  They were painted brown and hammered into the ground. I assembled the turkey and screwed the piece with the feathers to the steaks with 4 screws (two on each side).  The turkey has made it through two Thanksgivings and shows no signs of water damage from being on the ground and left outside.