My bookclub just finished reading Shogun by James Clavell splitting it up to a few chapters over the course of a year and I like to do something to commemorate these things and last time (when we read Count of Monte Cristo) keyfob/keychains went over well.
I spent some time considering what to do and then I was browsing the internets when I saw miniature squeaky chicken keychains and it made me think of a scene from the book (I understand the tv show covers it too although I’ve not seen that yet) where Blackthorne hangs a pheasant up outside his house to age intending to cook later but and then he forgets about it and it rots and there’s various plot points due to cultural differences that then occur.
So I got a set of these then added a wooden surround I designed to make the rubber chicken into a rubber pheasant. I also called on chatgpt to write me a few haiku with shogun as the theme and it did a better job that I could have done but presumable a terrible job by real poet standards.
These are my prototype versions trying out the different hardwoods I had and checking the settings etc. You can see there is what was meant to be a ship but it didn’t etch correctly I did fix this later and then broke it again somehow so half the finished versions don’t have the ship, I ran out of time to fix it.
The flower like symbol is the crest of the Tokugawa clan which became the symbol of the shogunate as used by the real historical person that Toranaga is based on (Tokugawa Ieyasu).
I like the maple and cherry versions the walnut felt a little too dark given the size of the text perhaps if I filled the etch of the text with some lighter colour paint or epoxy it would have worked but I didn’t really have time to do that.
I did my usual technique of securing the wood with magnets and tape then cutting side one then using the remaining wood as a jig by carefully going in and then flipping all the pieces in place. Then I made a duplicate of the first pass to align the otherside and get everything nicely in place.
I remember your Monte Cristo ones, these are just as excellent! I’m sure your book club will be thrilled I love that you turned the chickens into pheasants
I didn’t realize the TV series was based on a book. Now I’m going to have to read it. I remember the bird scene, I don’t recall him forgetting about it though, so it might be a little different.
It’s a little strange that the ships are lost on some proofgrade, but it happens. I remember proofgrade basswood losing details that showed up fine on cherry or walnut, like it just couldn’t burn through the finish.
Solid technique. For projects like this where you’re following an outline with a border even a standard pocket jig like you’re talking about might not be accurate enough due to kerf.
You might like this post where I talk about solving for that issue:
It’s an in-depth post, here’s the specific part I’m referring to:
I love it when someone takes such thoughtful things into consideration when creating. Would never have thought a hanging chicken would be thoughtful … but, wow! You did an awesome job.
Oof! Yeah, I never even finished the new series. I watched a few episodes because the actors are super famous and my husband seemed interested. But he lost interest after 3 or 4 episodes, said they were too long. I lose interest when they focus on personal relationship drama, which seems to be every popular series lately, so I hardly watch anything at all.
rofl. The mere fact that I knew what VHS was is probably some clue to the age. I have students at school who barely know how to operate the DVD players. When I give them VHS tapes, they just stare at me dumbfounded.
When I started out as an instructional designer creating training materials for NWS, USAF, and USN weather forecasters, PCs were still pre Windows 98, and could not display digital video. We used proprietary video overlay cards and stored all media on 12” laserdiscs. Every module shipped with a CD-ROM with the coding and application, along with its associated laserdisc. Oh, and each PC had to have a specific audio card installed. Good times!
I love that you turned the chickens into pheasants 
