Sunday, December 01, 2013

Steer

Right around Halloween I saw this steer head at the farm where we bought our pumpkins - pretty cool looking woodworking project.


I think it had a price tag of about $60 on it.  It was made of old fence boars that were made to look "weathered".  As cheap as I am I thought I could make something similar for less.

So last week bought some 1/2" X 1 1/2" X 8' pine boards for $6, cut them in half, placed them on a flat surface and free handed the steer head onto them.  Then I cut them out with a jig saw.


Doing these cuts on individual boards was tougher than I thought - I had to make sure they lined up after making the cuts.  Then once all the cuts were roughly made, I had to make the horns.  Finally I bought a piece of thin plywood to secure the whole this together and add some stability.  I traced the steer head on the plywood and rough cut out the shape.  I then flipped it over and tacked the plywood to the pine boards to secure the whole thing.


With that done, I had to sand the edges, paint the skull portion with white paint and let dry.  The next day I sanded out the white to make it look aged, then took my torch out and blackened the horns and edges, and aged the white sections as well.  I added a hook to the back and hung it in the garage for a day or so.

 
I added some Christmas lights to make it a bit more festive.
 

Final resting spot is in the basement behind the fly tying bench. 


Not bad for $15!