New Years Eve.

The legs are dry, and glue has oozed out all around.  This indicates that the glue has filled any gaps and that we've used enough glue.  The next step is to sand away the glue, and use the router to make more nice smooth edges.

Once this is done we can try cutting the slots in the legs and shoulders.  We want the elephant to be nice and stable, so we spend some time planning the positions of the slots.  These have to be correctly place so that the weight is distributed correctly, all the angles are square and the Elephant will stand straight and true.  The process of scaling up the original shapes from the tiny model, transferring them to ply and then cutting them out mean that the legs are not exactly the same shapes as the original, so we can't just use the slot positions transferred so far.   Using parallel pieces of wood, chalk and framing squares we get the front legs and shoulders into a position we are happy with and mark the slots.

Slots marked and corner hole drilled for jigsaw access

We then carefully cut the edges of the slots with a circular saw.  We drill holes in the corner of the slots to get the jigsaw in place to cut the bottom of the slots.

Once the slots are cut in the shoulders and legs we reach the moment of truth.  Is it going to work?  We rest the backbone on the shoulders in one of the cutouts.  This is about the same depth as the slot we will cut in the backbone, so it gives a pretty good idea of the height and stability of the Elephant.

With its tail clamped in a workmate, the Elephant stands tall.

I loosely place the ribs in place and with my sister in law standing next to it we finally get a real sense of how big this animal is.

Elephant with Sue for scale.

Time to knock off for New Years Eve.  No more Elephant construction until after the hangovers have abated early next year.