Wood Turning

You might recall from the poisoned apple project that I had some trouble with the top cap. The second attempt looked more like LEGO hair than dripping poison. Of course, that meant I needed to build a LEGO figure to go underneath the hair, and since Halloween is approaching rapidly, Frankenstein seemed like a good choice.

The head is a piece of maple. The turning is rather straightforward (a LEGO head is a rounded cylinder, more or less). I gave my Frankenstein a bit of a brow ridge and used the Lichtenberg burner to add a forehead scar. Other facial details were carved with chisels, and I dyed the wood with Transfast. Don’t forget the neck bolts!

The body is mostly made from walnut. The body required very little work — just some angled cuts and sanding. The arms are maple. I turned the profile of the hands, did some offset turning to add the required angles, then drilled out the centers of the hands and used the oscillating spindle sander to open them up and clean up the edges.

The legs are mostly bandsaw work. Once the profile is cut, you can use the oscillating spindle sander to clean it up.

I joined the pieces with 5/8” dowels. The dowels are only glued on one side, so I can still move the arms and legs of the figure if I want to. This makes our Frankenstein posable to a certain extent (much like actual LEGO figures).

This is another fun Halloween project that keeps to the spirit of the holiday but won’t make children cry. You can use this same basic principle to make any LEGO figure you want, though — it doesn’t have to be a halloween project.

Do you have more ideas for Halloween projects? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for watching!