{"id":127,"date":"2008-09-13T18:47:11","date_gmt":"2008-09-14T01:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dougandruth.com\/blog\/?p=127"},"modified":"2009-02-27T15:39:01","modified_gmt":"2009-02-27T22:39:01","slug":"talking-birds-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/blog\/talking-birds-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking Birds, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Truth be told, I like planning these projects much more than assembling them. I learned several years ago that manufacturing things is hard. In fact, the smaller the parts the harder it is.<\/p>\n

Conceptually, the parts of the bird go together like Lincoln Logs. Objectively, it’s really hard to make anything out of Lincoln Logs that you can fit up the butt of a hand puppet.<\/p>\n

It would be great if only my local hardware store would stock a myriad of little brackets in varying sizes; tiny little metal shapes that would have no use in home construction. But they don’t.<\/p>\n

I know. Some hobby stores carry some Erector Set like things for mounting servos or other small items, but they often get $4 for a \u00bc” L-bracket and that just doesn’t seem reasonable. Even at 50\u00a2, you have to ask the question “How long will it take me to make these with a hack saw and a length of L-bar or U-channel?” If you cut the parts yourself, you can have any size you want for very little money.<\/p>\n

Here’s an example:<\/p>\n \n\t\t