Montmorency

In August I received the following message from my sister Jacqui:

I am being presumptuous here, but as your only sibling and your only sister and your only sibling, oh yes, I already said that, but do you know if any of your pigs will be having a litter by the end of the year? I would so love one for my new home...or are they an absolute nightmare to make?  Much love from your only sister and vegetarian and great lover of small pigs, Jax 

How could I resist a request like that? I took it that she was referring to the two armoured pigs I have made from an old rusted steel fence post (see Mildred and Horace) from the banks of the Thames near Cricklade. They are in fact quite fiddly to make but I wasn't even sure I could get any more old fence-post, but a recce turned up a short piece, very badly rusted through at both ends and hanging from the fence by a piece of wire, its job long ago been taken over by the round wooden posts.

The rust was a bit of a worry as I kept on knocking out large chunks with an old screwdriver but the steel ended up looking structurally sound enough for the project and both the internal and external corrosion added a lot of character (the internal corrosion was still evident at each end when looking end-on).

I decided to make this pig even more provenance-rich with armour, body, ears, legs and packing material all relating to my area or to me.

My first task was to remove as much of the rust as possible using a stiff brass brush and lengthy soakings in a 1:25 solution of citric acid. Some of the most obstinate areas were at the bottom of pits and gullies but after many cycles of soak-and-brush, the steel was clean but obviously still pitted though this gave the surface an interesting texture. The inside of the post was similarly treated but I used sandpaper to produce a pitted but smooth finish.

I wanted the pig's body to have a similar provenance so chose a piece of fairly rotten fencing rail, about 25mm thick,  that I had rescued from a pile due to be burned. This was from a little further along the Thames at the edge of two fields. Here is the piece after being trimmed.

I don't know what kind of wood it is but although it's certainly nothing fancy, it's hard-enough and weather-resistant enough to have lasted, at a guess, many decades. Although the wood looks pretty dull here, once planed, sanded and oiled, it shows an attractive grain.

The body is formed in two sections: the head and the tail. The tail section was made from the piece to the right of the shallow saw-cut seen above. The head section needed to deep enough to be pushed into the tube leaving enough to be carved into the snout. On its own, the wood wasn't thick enough to form the body  so I planed one side, cut it in half and glued the two halves together using Gorilla wood glue. You have see the horizontal join in the photo of the head below.