| Finally a window of time presented itself and I found myself ready to tackle the assembly of the long awaited Birdbox. First I had to finish chasing the surfaces of the birds and their nest. I used various Dremel attachments to smooth out the remains of the gating attachment points and any surface imperfections on the two bird figures, and then reworked the areas that need to be re-textured. The nest required a bit of extra attention before chasing. I had to remove the bits of mold investment that remained stuck in the tiny deep spaces in the texture of the nest. I happen to have a very nice selection of metal dental tools (thank you, Dr. Seekins!) that were indispensable for that task. After cleaning and chasing the nest, I drilled a hole in the bottom and epoxied a short length of threaded rod in it. I then made some light surface cuts in the rods protruding from the bottoms of the birds' feet so that the epoxy would adhere to the metal more effectively. I buffed the pieces with a Dremel buffing wheel and then sealed them with statin finish spray lacquer. (I had decided that the natural buffed bronze color would work best with the color of the box.) The final part of this process was to prepare the box lid for the attachment of the bronze pieces. I used tracing paper to transfer the position of the attachment rods to the box lid from the styrofoam block that I had used to test out the positioning of the pieces. Once I drilled the holes, I attached each bronze piece, one at a time, with epoxy in the appropriate holes, allowing each to set before attaching the next. The finished piece turned out just as I had envisioned it - perhaps I had something to crow about, certainly something to "tweet" over. | 
Chased birds
Nest attachment rod epoxied
Foot attachment rods
Hole drilled in box lid
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Box measures 12 5/8" x 6 1/8" x 5 3/8"
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Height with birds is 11 1/8"
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