Glueing and slotting.

The Elephant needs to be stable, so the legs should be glued to their hips/shoulders to make it really strong.  It also needs to be transportable, preferably in our car.  So the first thing to do before we commit ourselves is to check to see if the legs will fit in the car as glued components.  After a bit of fiddling it seems, miraculously, that the legs will actually fit after glueing.   Of course the real test will come later.

After making sure this is possible we concentrate on cutting the rib slots.  This involves more framing up, calculating and cutting.  The placement of the ribs isn't so important functionally, but they will look much nicer evenly spaced and vertical.

Marking out the rib slots.

Once we finished cutting the rib slots the next step is framing up and glueing the legs.  This time we will use a slightly different glue as the gaps to be filled are much larger and the bonds will have to take more stress.  It takes some thought and experimentation to find a position where the legs will stay in place while the glue sets.  The front legs just about balance on their own when placed on a small platform of scrap wood, a few brick on top of the shoulders and we'll be fine.   We coat the insides of the slots and the faces where they touch the shoulders with glue.  The glue starts to go off quite quickly so we can't mess about.  Once the glued legs are in place we have to check that everything is true using a square and spirit level.  When we are finally satisfied with the positioning some cross braces are temporarily nailed in place, and the legs are also nail and screwed into the shoulders.  As the glue sets it will expand and push the legs out of true if they are not held in place by clamps, screws or nails.

Front legs glued and braced in position

We go through a similar process with the rear legs, although these are held upright by a temporary brace rather than bricks.

Rear legs glued and braced.

Now we have to wait over night before finding out if we have glued the Elephant in a stable configuration and more importantly if all the legs really will fit into the car!