After a couple of days of “Brain-Strain”, convincing one of my friends that he wanted to contribute to the arts by cutting a piece of 3/4 inch plywood into a 12 inch circle, and spending most of my allowance at the local hardware buying 1/2 inch PVC pipe fittings, I now have an armature that will support the Red-Tail. (I hope)

This armature will be encased inside the sculpture and is there to give the sculpture stability while the clay is pliable. Once the clay is fired the armature will evenly distribute weight throughout the entire sculpture and relieve stress within the overall piece.

The next step is to attach a reinforcement material to the armature that will securely hold the clay, but will allow for a reduction in the thickness of the clay, so that it will fire more evenly. The idea is to have the center of the sculpture hollow, but attached to the supporting armature. I’m still thinking about what that material will be. It must be light in weight; embed into the clay to act as reinforcement, but must stand up to the 250 degree firing temperature.

This will be the subject of the next Newsletter.

Here’s the bird and armature view: