Building junk turkey number 8

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At the risk of sounding like a broken record, here’s my latest junk turkey.

This is No. 8 in the collection if anyone (besides my husband) is counting. He told me I should I move on to something new. Junk owls. Junk dogs. Junk porcupines. I told him he should mind his own business.

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Junk turkey parts

Here are the parts I used for Turkey No. 8:

• A shallow pot with molded metal handles
• Two big pan lids
• An aluminum pie pan
• A vintage potato ricer
• A crusty old jelly jar cover
• Two L brackets
• A mysterious metal cone

Anybody know what the metal cone is or was in its previous life? I’m kind of afraid to ask in case it’s a part from a vintage sex toy or something weird like that, but I am curious. As usual, I found it in a bin at the Dig & Save.

Assembling the head

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Obviously, the mysterious metal cone was destined to become the turkey’s face/beak. I found a threaded rod that fit the hole in the center of it and screwed it in.

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Then I disassembled the potato ricer, because I only wanted to use the top half of it. (I used a hacksaw to cut the metal pin that was holding the two halves together.)

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I dispensed with the bottom half (by which I mean I put it back in my bin full of junk parts, just in case I need it for a future project). Then I placed the metal cone on the frame of the ricer.

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I needed a piece to stack underneath the frame in order to hold the metal cone in place, and I thought this old jelly jar lid would fill the bill. I drilled a hole in the middle of it …

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… and slid it onto the bolt. Then I attached a nut to the bolt to hold everything in place.

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Here’s what the turkey’s head looked like at this point.

Sadly, the jelly jar lid ultimately proved to be too flimsy. It kept slipping off the frame. Eventually I decided to replace it with a chrome lid that seemed a little too modern for this guy but was a whole lot sturdier. In the battle between form and function, sometimes you just gotta go with what works.

Attaching the head to the breast

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Next, I connected the potato ricer to the shallow pot that was going to be the turkey’s breast. To attach the two pieces, I drilled holes through both and screwed a bolt through the holes.

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Then I attached a nut to the back of the bolt to keep the head in place. (If only all of the pieces connected this easily.)

Next up: the legs

At this point, I set the head and breast aside to work on the legs.

Loyal readers might remember that I used L brackets as legs on another turkey that I made earlier this fall. The brackets worked great for keeping that turkey upright, and since I had two more of the same brackets on hand, I decided to use them on this guy.

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The brackets had holes in them already, so I just had to drill two holes into the bottom of the metal lid that was going to be the back layer of the turkey’s tail feathers.

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Then I lined up the brackets and ran bolts through them and the tail feathers. I attached nuts to the bolts to secure everything.

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Here’s what the turkey looked like from the back once the legs were attached.

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And here’s what he looked like from the front.

Junk turkey feathers

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From here, I began layering on the rest of the turkey’s feathers and body, starting with this pan.

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I added an aluminum pie pan next.

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Finally, the shallow pot with the molded handles went on top. (The handles look like wings, don’t they?)

To attach all of the layers, I drilled holes in each of the pans and ran a bolt all the way through.

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Then I screwed a nut onto the back of the bolt.

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All the protrusions on the back of the tail feathers pan bothered me.

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So I scrounged up another pie pan and layered that on the back, covering the handle and all of the nuts and bolts poking out.

To attach the pie pan, I drilled holes through it and the pans under it and screwed a bolt in. I wasn’t able to attach nuts because my bolts weren’t long enough to go through all the layers of pans and come out the other side. The bolts are wedged in pretty tightly, though, so I’m reasonably confident they will hold.

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Here’s what the back of the turkey looked like once I had the pie pan attached.

Adding eyes

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Turkey No. 8 was shaping up to be a rather handsome fellow. He just needed eyes at this point.

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I like using old nuts for eyes, because they’re kind of mechanical looking, in keeping with the character of the bird, so that’s what I used on this guy, too.

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Then I glued beads inside the nuts to give him a little more personality.

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So there you have it: another junk turkey.

Band of junk turkey brothers?

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I consider this guy a brother to the other turkey I referenced earlier in this post, because they both have the same legs and the same eyes.

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Aren’t they cute? They’re setting out on my back porch now.

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As always, thanks for reading. If you know what the cone is from, let me know in the comments below. And if you’re not sick of junk turkeys yet, follow me on Facebook or Instagram or subscribe to the blog via email so you don’t miss my next build. (Occasionally I blog about non-turkey related projects, too.)

— Lisa