Wooden Fish Weathervanes: Part One

Wooden Weathervanes, Fish Story
Part One:  Using what you know.  Staying with what I know, I was not going to be using exotic wood, carving masterpieces for profit let alone a museum.  Backyard, wind moved, wooden, using material that was readily available, tools that I had with skills at hand.
     Big Box hardware store is readily available so that was an easy choice.  Lumber in various species, grades and dimensions was close by. Glues, hardware and any tools that might be needed were all within easy reach. Starting with wood was the first of many decisions.
     WOOD:  Attractive color, grain and cost were high on the list.  Living in the mountain West, there is access to lots of western red cedar.  It is used primarily for fence posts, comes in construction common rough grade.  Pine, mixed fir, Doug fir again is readily available,  Redwood, clear heart, gorgeous material that is pricey to construction grades that are con common grades.  Generally the more you pay the less knots or clear stock.  Rustic with knots is fine for this application.

Wooden Fish Weathervanes

Wooden Weathervanes, Fish Story
          The first effort was the result of lots of Internet fishing for pictures and casting many GOOGLE nets.  The result was mixed.  I came up with DIY kind of posts from all walks of life.  Some rustic cabin kind of looks, western motif to eastern coastal tones, lots of WHIRLIGIGS with mechanical movements and aircraft. The most interesting were old, called antiques, weathervanes made by east coast trades/fishing people.  Auction sites were selling the weather worn and tired looking pieces for thousands of dollars.  My interest was something that would be mounted outside, a true weathervane. Bicycle wheels mounted on a post or a spinning whirligig were not the aesthetic feel I was after. Fish are naturally hydrodynamic in their underwater world. So, a fish out of water should be aerodynamic, have the ability to move in the wind with a tail and fins to react to the changes in moving air.  A fish out of water, moving in air.

         The searching developed some real gems and really nothing that came close to what I was after.  The history of weathervanes, at least what I have gleaned from  Internet searches, place many of the works on top of homes and barns in the colonial days forward.  Origins indicate that sheet copper was shaped/pounded into a carved form, brazed or joined, a spire/pivot installed and the entire work went onto a cupola.  Round spheres, a fixed compass/cardinal compass rose arguably defining a purpose for the weathervane may or may not have been useful. I just think that they were installed because they  looked cool.  I seriously doubt that a meteorologic prognostication was ever formed based on the movement of a weathervane.  Still, that is the name that attached to them. So..... who knows. Trees move with the wind and trees are trees not weathervanes.
          The tiny offerings from Internet based mass produced stuff are small and not of a scale to really be mounted anywhere and be seen. Perhaps the biggest deterrent are owner associations with restrictive covenants (CCRs) that demand compliance with uniformity.  So having a roof mounted, or something above the fence line would not meet the CCRs of many homes/subdivisions guarded by CCRs.  My homes are all encumbered with restrictive CCRs that prevent the installation of wind spinners or related adornments visible from the street.   So, my thinking was that big is better and the installation is ground level, in a backyard, below the fence.
          My searches were to follow the path of others before me.  Why chop a new path when there is a proven course trod by many others in the past.
         Connecting the fish with some type of bearing/pivot point to assure there was a smooth movement was important. Where I live has regular and recurring winds in excess of 50 mph.  Not at all unusual to have wind gusts in excess of 60+.  So, the installation needed to be weather resistant, compliant with CCRs, move in the wind, be attractive and use the stuff that I had access to.  My first thoughts were that something without a concrete base, two feet in the ground would just blow away and fall apart. Past experience with WHIRLIGIGs confirmed certain wind destruction and lots of maintenance.  I wanted to use the hubs from bicycle wheels as the bearing element.  I ended that pursuit after some effort and realization that the hubs were rotating on the axle.  The hub would need to be installed within the fish shape to achieve the use.  Hubs were out for that fact.
          After making many fish weathervanes, I stumbled on to some real artistry. The absolute best of the best is from Mike Butler, fish carver and I am sure a great guy.  Check out his website,  https://mikebutlerfishcarver.com/.  His weathervanes are amazing: https://mikebutlerfishcarver.com/weathervanes.asp    He creates art that is as accurate a recreation of fish that exists on the planet.  Waaay more involved than I aspired to.  Again, I was after something that moves with the wind in a backyard.  Something that I could make in my garage turned shop when I move the cars. Something I could finish in my lifetime with the tools and skills I had. Rustic, perhaps crude was what I was after and I could aspire to. So, I started.

Wooden Fish

Wooden Fish Weathervanes

Wooden Weathervanes, A fish Story
Every fish story has a beginning.  In or around 1997 I started down the path of building the first of two wooden kayaks.  The format is referred to as "stitch and glue" based on the use of Okume plywood panels, a thin veneer cut to a shape, "stitched" together with a copper wire and opened to a shape, and finally glued with epoxy and fiber glass.  Epoxy and varnish go together for wood that has any place in the outside world.  Wood is inherently weak. Sun, water, wind and time all degrade wood to a grey mass destined for decomposition without protection from the elements.  Wood is readily available. There are hundreds of tools to shape, glue and transform flat boards into something to sit on or float inside of.

Wooden Fish Weathervane

Wooden Fish Weathervanes

Wooden fish weathervanes: Fish Story

     This may not be a fish, rather an icthyosaurus that paddled the great Basin in Nevada/Utah and the rest of the world forever ago.  This is a photo from Burning Man, 2013 that was created and installed at the festival as a moving interactive HUGE kinetic sculpture.  Imagine a 50 foot long suspended marionette that could be moved by pulling on the ropes.  That and it was lit at night giving it the presentation shown. It was wooden, apparently from take offs from some fossilized remains from a location in Nevada.  The forms were assembled from what appears to be plywood, laminated and assembled. The key thing here is that it moved, not so much from the wind, but it moved.  Burning Man (BM) is very cool and a worthy bucket list item for anyone who appreciates the effort that goes into making something for the joy of making.  Kind of the gratification of completing something yourself.

Not that the Icthyosaur was a scale that I was after, but it led to wind and kinetic related interests sparked by Burning Man.  But, BM was something that you participate in and my SO at the time, my significant other, now more significant as a full-on wife, planned to return as a participant, not just an observer. We had the logistical needs, a trailer, generator and knowledge of what was needed to participate and really participate.  In preparation for our participation, I began to run down the accessories for a wind based kinetic something. Bicycle wheels, chains, gears were an easy transferable skill as I had worked on bikes for years, wheels had the easy adaptation to a windmill type of structure.  Wheels with some sort of vane attached to the spokes for wind movement and transfer of the movement via a cassette on the wheel, transferring the movement by chain to other wheels.  So, wind was the energy and bicycle wheels, chains and cassettes was the medium.

Now I needed the wheels.  Craig's List  provided the name of a guy that knew a guy that worked at the waste management facility and he collected stuff that he could sell.  That guy sold a bunch, 40 bicycle wheels, with cassettes and front wheels, in various conditions, most without tires to the guy from Craig's List.  He was a Burner and we struck a deal and I went home with 40 (+ or -) wheels. That started the process. What ended the process was the inability to get tickets.  We failed on the lottery system and there was no way I was going to pay $1,000 and MORE for one, let alone two tickets.  So, that ended the immediate drive to do something with the wheels.
Still I anticipation of BM I tinkered and dug around on the Internet and found many others all over the planet had been using bicycle wheels in a "re-purposed" project. Some were not much more than an effort to generate power with the wheel acting as the driving force to turn a small generator  using tape or cone type of attachments to harness the wind and create movement.
This is the end of this Blog:

     I had built WHIRLIGIGS in the past. Complete with movement and complex gyrations.  The reality of the interesting shapes and movements is that they will NOT last in big wind.  And, they require constant maintenance.  Small moving parts in more than a breeze result in a absolute guaranteed destruction. If for some reason the assembly makes it past the first big blow, the future is a certain wind death at the second big blow. Do not take this as a dis/slam/throwing shade of the skilled and imaginative creators -- I was one of them. But, from my chair, they are fun, eccentric, not real aesthetic and not something that you want in your visual field. Perhaps some retired, or mechanical types, with lots of colorful paints remaining from prior projects are interested in them.  Good for them, but, NOT what I am after.

     I had built a series of slide shades from wire rope and S-hooks in the past. I salvaged some of that material and built a slide rail shade structure using shade cloth, sewed by a local awning maker and using conduit, aka EMT or electrical mechanical tubing as the rib/support that was inserted into the sleeve/pocket of the shade cloth.  The EMT is the material that electricians use for electric installations.  It is in various diameters, 1/2" and 3/4" at the big box stores. AND it has all kinds of connections that allow LOTS of opportunities to connect the wheel axle clamped on to the EMT. Better yet, there are lots of bending tools on Craig's List that can adjust to the desired shape of your imagination.

BUT, after all of that, the result was an industrial looking structure without much visual appeal.  Yep, it moved in the wind, and I had figured out how to connect the pieces and install in the ground.  BUT it was not attractive. BUT, it led to  the first wooden fish idea.  That was a fish suspended by wire ropes from the rim of a wheel, using the hub as the pivot point.  I got that Idea from a roof-top anemometer that was visible from an office that I was visiting.  No pictures of the original suspended fish can be found.  Still, that led to the creation of a wooden fish, knowledge of what could be used to support the fish and the path to weathervane fish was started.

Wooden Fish Weathervanes

Wooden Fish Weathervanes: November 27, 2018.  This is truly a work in progress.  The beginning of this was a search for others that have made, or make, wooden weathervanes, wind art out of wood or any thing that is close to that. I have found LOTS of commercial materials out there that are not so great. Some incredible art from gifted wood sculptures creating weathervane art that must cost in the $1,000s if not $10,000s. As noted below, the fish I have made fall into the rustic genre of outdoor, garden art.