DIY Whirligig Bird: Animating the Outdoors

While whirligigs have evolved through different forms and structures through several several centuries with the earliest origin untraceable, the history and origin of wind driven whirligigs date back to the 18th century. Then subsequently it began to grow in popularity among people e Europe, by the early 19th century, whirligigs started becoming a popular folk art among the Americans, this was believed to be spread by European immigrants and by the end of the 19th century wind driven whirligig structures have become a past time activity in America.

There are still some antique whirligig structures from those eras across various museums and the Vollis Simpson's Whirligig Park Museum is a magnificent location elaborately dedicated to celebrating the history of wind driven whirligigs, and exhibition of modern gigantic whirligig structures.

If you'd love to know more about whirligigs and whirligig history, you might want to check out this comprehensive article about whirligigs and their history here.

In today's instructable, I'll be giving a step by step guide on how I made this DIY whirligig bird.

Whirligigs are a fun way of adding an element of liveliness to the surroundings be it the garden, backyard or anywhere outdoors. Whirligig systems mostly operate on wind which drives the blades which in turn power whatever mechanism the whirligig is displaying.

Whirligigs can be made in different unique forms which is dependent on the creativity, culture and resource levels of the hobbyist or craftsman. There are whirligig models of a figurine riding bike, washing clothes by hand , or figurines running around in circles, and these models run perpetually in the wind.

As seen from the pictures, I have chosen to make my whirligig model a bird that continually flaps its wings as if flying in the wind.

All measurements needed are equal to the dimensions in the attached templates.

To make this project, you'll be needing the following equipment and materials. Remember that you can always improvise in case whereby you do not have one of these at hand.

Wooden board

Wooden rod/ dowel

1cm by 1cm planks

Metal rods

Spray paint: White, Orange, Green (Feel free to choose your own color combination)

Hole borer (or use the pointed tip of a scissors)

Hand saw

Sandpaper

Adhesive glue for wood: cyanoacrylate or epoxy glue (you'll have to mix the two tubes for the epoxy glue before application)

1.5 inches door hinges x2

Pliers

Masking tape

Scissors

Ruler

Pencil

Attached to this step are two templates of the bird body and the two wings.

Print out the templates attached and transfer the drawing to the wooden board with pencil. Make sure the lines are thick enough so it wouldn't get erased while you're trying to cut out the parts.

Using the hand saw (or a coping saw with thin blade), cut out the body and wings from the wooden board using the template transferred to it as a guide.

You might want to sand off rough edges got from the cut.

In the case of imperfect cuts, you can use the sandpaper to remove the excess chunks.

ATTACHMENT: The template for the blades and the wheel.

Just as done earlier, print out the template and transfer the plan for the four blades to the wooden board. You might want to use a tenon saw to cut these out due to the length of the blades as the hand saw might not be able to get all the way through.

The cut edges passed against the sandpaper a couple of times to smoothen them and we move on to making the wheel to which the four blades will be attached to.

Transfer the design of the wheel to the wooden board and cut it out with the hand saw, or a coping saw with thin blade (for a more accurate circular cut). I made two of this wheel so as to increase the depth and thickness and create more surface area for the blades to be glued onto.

As seen on the transferred template, the wheel is going to have four grooves for attachment of the blades and a center hole for the axle. Cut out the grooves and continually widen it till they are 1cm wide each and then bore a hole at the center of the wheel using the hole-borer or tip of the scissors.

Take the four blades and put them one each into the four grooves tilting each by about 60 degrees on the wheel. Apply glue generously to secure the blades into the grooves on the wheel at the tilted angle which would be the angle of attack against the winds.

ATTACHMENT: Template for the driving shaft wheel.

This part is the wheel that drives the bird up and down through a connecting rod.

As in the earlier steps, move the template to the wooden board and cut out the two circular wooden discs equal in size to the ones drawn on the template, bore a hole 1cm in diameter in the center and another hole 1cm in diameter 1.5cm away from the center for the two discs, make sure the holes do align and glue the two discs together.

Cut a wooden dowel to 3cm long and wrapping one of its end in glue, insert the dowel into the hole made to the side of the two discs being on top each other and allow to dry.

NOTE: The attachment for this is in the file drawingsidesremaining.pdf attached to the next step.

ATTACHMENT: Template for the parts needed to construct the box.

The template for the dimensions of the parts needed for assembly of the box are present in the attachment above.

Cut out the parts from the wooden board and smoothen the edges with your sandpaper.

A supporting skeleton is made for the box using a 1cm by 1cm wooden plank. Cut two pieces each equal to the length of the box, 23cm from the plank and two other pieces equal to the width, of the box minus the thickness (total of 2cm) of the earlier cut two long pieces, that is, cut a length of 2.5cm. On assembly of the planks into a rectangle, it should be the same size when placed over the base plate of the box. Glue the rectangle into a unit and then glue it over the base plate of the box.

The other part of the frame skeleton would be four pieces with their length each equal to the height of the box (7cm) minus the height of the already assembled base plate, that is 6cm. While ensuring the pieces make an angle of 90 degrees, glue each piece to each of the four corners of the base plate into a single unit.

Take the side plates and glue them to the sides of the constructed frame.

As for the front and back plates, a hole just big enough (about 1cm) for the dowel to comfortably fit through was made into their centers and then were glued to the frame at the front and back to complete the box.

Now take a wooden dowel of length 27cm, considerably longer than the box and pass it through the box. On one side, the mini turbine we made will be fixed, on the other end, the driving shaft wheel will be attached.

NOTE: STEPS 7 AND 8 SHOULD'VE COME BEFORE PAINTING OF THE PARTS, IT IS ADVISABLE TO FOLLOW THE STEPS BEFORE COMING BACK TO FINALLY PAINT OVER THE PARTS AND STRUCTURES. THOUGH TNOT COMPULSORY BUT IT'LL SAVE YOU THE STRESS OF HAVING TO SAND OFF PAINT LAYERS WHEN YOU WANT TO GLUE PARTS TOGETHER.

All parts were given at least 3 layers of paint and I made use of spray paints.

Each layer was allowed to dry before passing on another layer.

For the driving shaft wheel, the first two layers of paint was with color green and then a final layer of white. I made use of this approach because I needed to paint most parts white, lesser parts green and the least parts orange, so I used the colors likely to remain for the base layers. I didn't use orange because it's way too bright and would require more layers of white than intended to conceal it.

For the wind turbine, I covered it in about four layers of white paint, and added some accents of green to the tips of the blades.

For the box itself, I painted it with three layers of green, and added some accents of white along the base.

I really like the addition of the accent colors, I was a bit hesitant at first, but they turned out to be great.

For the bird body, I chose to give a white color and an orange beak which turned out elegant. I first painted the whole structure with multiple layers of white and after it's properly dry, I drew the shape of the beak on both sides using the given template as a reference. I then started using paper tape to mask the remaining portion of the body asides the beak up to the outline of the beak drawn. After this, the body should be completely covered on both sides with tape except for the beak. I then spay painted the beak portion orange.

For the wings, I painted the underside white entirely, after drying, I flipped the wings over to paint the outer surface.

The outer surface has a pattern for three colors but first painted everything white and then sketched the outline onto it from the template, following the procedure of masking earlier discussed, I painted the extreme portions orange, the back portion green and the remaining front part was left as white.

The edges of the wing was coated white and that of the body except for the beak portion (which was coated orange) was coated white.

If you followed the NOTE in step 5, you'd be here before painting the structures, so can safely omit the requirements of sanding portions of the paint for stronger adhesion of the glue.

To make the guide for the driving and supporting shafts:

For the guides attached to the wings, I took the 1cm by 1cm plank and cut out two pieces of length 2cm each and make a grove in the middle of the width of each piece using the saw. The groove should be just deep and wide to accommodate your metal rod and permit it to roll freely in it. Do this for the second piece as well.

Flipping the wing over, make a straight line across the wing with a pencil, 10cm from and parallel to the side of the wing.

Position the two guides made in the center of the line with the two placed 2cm apart from each other, mark their positions and scrape off the paint in those areas and apply glue to the surfaces and glue the guides in place.

Do this also for the other wing.

For the guide to be fixed to the body, cut two pieces each of length 3cm from the 1cm by 1cm plank and make a groove for the metal rod in one and a bigger groove to fit the width of the body in for the other piece.

Glue the two pieces together as shown in the picture and then glue it to a sanded portion on the base of the bird at its midpoint of the bird.

Allow the glue to dry properly paint the guides and sanded portions.

Arrange the two wings with the body of the bird as it should be in-situ, and position the two hinges in place and mark out their positions, scrape away the paints and glue the hinges to the body and the wings on the each side as shown in the pictures.

ATTACHMENT: The pattern for bending the metal rod into the required form.

This part will be made out of the steel rod and the bird will be suspended by the guides under the wings over this.

Cut a metal rod of 26cm in length and laying it over the printed template, bend the rod to the form draw in the template, the top part of the rod should be twisted by 90 degrees to face outwards.

Do this for another metal rod, so we have two of the suspension rods.

The two inverted J-shaped rods would be attached to the sides of the box earlier made, 4cm from the end where the driving shaft wheel is attached. To do this, take the 1cm by 1cm plank and cut two pieces of length 7cm each and make a groove in the middle of each that would hold the lower parts of the metal rods to the sides of the box. Mark the surface where the suspension rods would be attached on both sides and scrape off the glue over the surfaces, fill glue into and over the groove and pass the rod into the glue within the groove and place it over the marked surfaces on each side of the box making sure the upper horizontal part of the suspension rod is point straight forward towards the end of the box.

I then coated the rods white.

With the suspension rod in place already, we'll proceed to making a structure that will guide the bird body in its up and down motion. Without this structure the driving shaft may push the bird sideways during the up and down motion.

To make the motion guide, I took another 1cm by 1cm plank and cut a length of 23cm, I then cut another 23cm long strip of equal width as the plank from the wood board, and finally, I cut two other pieces of length 6cm and 3cm from the wood board.

Gluing the parts together, the two 23cm long pieces will be separated in between by the 6cm and 3cm pieces on the two ends.

The gap in between this guide will accommodate the stout tail part of the bird body and will prevent sideways movements during its up and down motion.

The motion guide was then glued down to the middle of the top of the box and supported by the sides by two blocks of length 1cm and 2cm cut from the 1cm by 1cm plank glued to it.

The guide was then painted, two layers of green followed by a layer of white on top. Maybe I acted randomly, LOL.

To attach the blade to the shaft, I made holes into the center of two bottle caps, inserted the first cap onto the shaft, secured it with hot glue, inserted the blade wheel next and secured both together with hot glue, then the second piece of bottle cap was passed on and also held with hot glue.

The driving shaft wheel as secured in place with the glue and the the driving shaft itself passed onto it and then blocked it from falling off by gluing a small disc cut from the wooden board and painted with a center hole onto it.

The bird wings where suspended by passing the suspension rods into the guides underneath the wings and the back portion of the bird body was place in the motion guide bar. The driving shaft rod was then passed into the guide at the underside of the bird body.

The tip of the rods passing through the guide on the bird wings and body were bent downwards with pliers to secure them in place.

The base for the whirligig is where the whirligig structure will rest on while displayed outdoors. This stand is made to be tall enough as to clear the blades of the turbine from hitting the surrounding structures as it is spinning in the wind. The stand is also made in such way as to allow the whirligig rotate freely as to always position the turbine in the direction of the wind.

I got some bigger wooden planks for this, and cut three pieces each 30cm long.

If you have a short pole that you can tie or nail the stand to, you'd only need one piece and its length would be dependent on how short your pole is. You don't want it too tall that people won't be able to fully admire it and you also do not want it too short that animals can knock it out.

In my case, I only have tall poles around the house, so I made the stand in a way to allow me tie the stand to the side of a pole.

The three 30cm pieces are nailed together as shown in the picture to make a J shape. You should use at least two nails per joint.

That aside, we'll make the platform that receives the whirligig onto it and permits for free rotation in the air.

To make this platform, cut a 4cm by 12cm rectangle from the wood board and bore a small hole just slightly larger than the nail you're using, then cut four pieces to make a rectangle of equal dimensions. Glue the structures together and spray paint it. I used my orange spray paint for this (no other reason than because my green and white paint cans were almost empty and won't be enough to properly coat it).

This is meant to fit in tightly into the bottom of the box and then be glued in place.

Take a plastic bottle cap cut out the walls and drive a nail through its center. Pass the nail through the hole in the platform and nail it into the top of the longer arm of the stand. Make sure the nail passes all the way through the wood so it holds the platform firmly to the stand and allows for rotation of the platform. Proceed to pour glue into the bottle cap so it holds the head of the nail firmly in it and give rigidity that prevents the platform from bending over the stand.

Now you can tie or nail the stand to its support.

Apply glue to the sides of the platform and the inner surface of the box and press the two together with the platform going inside the bottom of the box. Allow the glue to dry completely.

The demonstration gif image above was recorded prior to finalizing the project as there was some gentle wind blowing that evening (evident by the clothes lightly swinging in the background). Noticeable air movement have mostly been occurring at late hours when it'll be too dark to get some usable shots.

Possible improvements that I think can be made when doing this is to apply a layer of varnish over the paint, I'm not a pro at woodworking but I guess it'll give it higher durability against moisture. Also, using a thicker wood board will add to its durability and longevity outdoors. Although irrespective of how hard you try to avoid it, sadly whirligigs are not permanent, they degrade over time and waste away due to the harsh outdoors weather condition, which is why only few whirligig structures from the 18th and 19th century era are stil present and are displayed by some museums.

I'm really happy with the way this turned out, just a idea that fascinated me and I was able to make it, hope you like it too.