Sail Fish cont'd...

Again more work has been done on this puppet.
Although Im still waiting for the initial coat of colours to dry, and have not been able to continue painting...there was plenty to go on with.

To begin with...I removed the Cane Toad leather from the clamps and cut the fins and tail to shape...Then I figured it was time to tackle the "masts" that will hold the "sails" as the main dorsal fin.
First step was to prep the lengths of dowel... Because I'm planning on having these masts look somewhat like an old sail ship with ropes and rigging, I figured I best go the full way and prepare some brass fittings and sailhooks... This meant getting rather technical and having to work in minute scale...Once the parts were cut and prepared...it was time to drill tiny holes into the brass and dowel to fit the tiny eyelet rings... This was way more time consuming than I first thought... but it was worth it...
Then, I decided to push myself and rather than simply glue the eyelet rings in place, I would solder them. The issues was that because the eyelets went right through the wood...the brass had to be soldered whilst on the wood. This, naturally caused me to worry about the wood burning under the heat of the flame during the soldering process...And I wasnt surprised at the results...Rather than give up and start over, I thought there was the potential for a great sense of "age" on the burnt wood. I decided to continue...and took time to first clean up and polish the brass...then deliberately burn the rest of the mast...
The experiment worked brilliantly...and all three masts came out looking like they had seen many a year on the high seas...Then it was time for a test fit...of cause! So I carefully placed all three masts into position and....
I cant wait to get this fish together and climb the rigging then set the sails!