Repurposed junk turkey No. 10

Hello and welcome to Wisconsin Magpie, where one man’s trash is another woman’s repurposed junk turkey.

I made my first junk turkey four years ago, using vintage kitchenware as parts, and every fall since then I’ve felt the need to enlarge my flock.

Here’s my latest addition:

Of the 10 turkeys I’ve made so far, I think he was the easiest to put together, as he has just five main components.

Parts for Repurposed Junk Turkey No. 10

Here’s the junk I repurposed to make this guy:

• Large coffee basket
• Pie tin
• Vintage juicer
• Sprinkler head
• Round pan with raised vents*

*Is this a pan? I found it in the pots and pans section at a thrift store, so I’m guessing it is, but I’m not sure what those raised vents would be for. If you have any insights, please share in the comments section at the bottom of this post.

Attaching the sprinkler to the coffee basket

The first thing I did when making this turkey was to attach the coffee basket (which was going to be the turkey’s breast) to the sprinkler head (which was going to be his feet).

To do that, I drilled a hole into the bottom of the coffee basket …

… and then ran a short bolt through the hole and screwed it into a preexisting hole at the top of the sprinkler head.

After four years in the junk turkey making business, I feel qualified to say sprinkler heads make the best bases. They look like feet (at least as much as any metal piece of junk can) while being low to the ground and extremely stable. And nobody wants an unstable junk turkey.

Adding the turkey’s head

After I had the feet attached to the body, I ran a long bolt through a hole in the bottom of the juicer (which was going to be the turkey’s head and neck).

Then I ran the bolt through the coffee basket …

… and screwed a nut onto the bolt to hold the pieces together.

Here’s what my turkey looked like from the back at this point:

Time for the tail feathers

To add the tail feathers to the body, I drilled a hole through the round pan …

.. and slid the pan onto the same bolt that was running through the turkey’s head and breast, securing it in place with another nut.

To cover the end of the bolt sticking out of the back of the pan, I added a pie tin.

I attached the pie tin to the pan with a few short bolts around the perimeter of both pieces.

Here’s the profile view of my almost completed turkey:

Repurposed junk turkey eyes

All my turkey needed now was eyes, so I rummaged through my supply of beads and hardware to see what I had that would work. I decided to use some small wooden beads as eyeballs and center them inside a couple of silver grommets.

I painted the beads white on the outside and black inside the hole.

Then I glued the beads inside the grommets.

Finally, I glued the grommets to the inside of the juicer.

Ta da: Turkey No. 10

And here he is in his finished form: Repurposed Junk Turkey No. 10.

If your interested in reading about turkeys 1-9 (or about the rare repurposed junk rabbit), check them out here.

I already have turkey No. 11 in the works, so expect to see him making a blog appearance soon.

Let me know what you think of No. 10 in the comments. And if you enjoyed this post, please feel free to share it with your friends on social media. I’m sure they’d much rather read about junk turkeys than politics. 😂 🤣

— Lisa