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A very British porqupine…..

A customer of mine who has bought rather more floats then any sane man could possibly use in a lifetime was having a natter on the phone a while back. During the course of the conversation I said how hard it now was to get porcupine quills and that the direct import was now banned due to CITES regulations.  He said ‘ Shame English porcupines weren't larger’’ followed by a hearty chuckle.  Well, his comment stayed in my mind and every time I was comissioned to make an African porqupine quill float, I would recall this conversation and smile.

Fast forward several months and I am out having an explore with my crazy beutiful daughter doing whats called Bundu bashing in Africa - basically wandering off piste, travelling the path less troden and generally having a good adventure looking for cool stuff.  Well, it was not long until I was being beckoned over to ‘look at this dad’.  

What she had discovered was initally easy to identify, but a bit harder to explain.  We were both looking at a pile of hedgehog quills - and nothing else……Most odd.  Obviously some poor hog had met its dimise, but where were all the bones? Apart from a very crushed section of skull, there was nothing at all barring the quills.  After a while, I remembered that the only real predator for hedgehogs is the badger, of which we have plenty here in the west country.  Once killed, it would make sense for the badger to flip it onto its back and have its fill.  A badger is certainly capable of chewing up all the bones and leaving the few bits we were now looking at.  

Now, in contravention of Lord alone know how many wildlife laws here in the UK, I decided it would be a bit of fun to have a go at making a scaled down waggler using one.  Well, fun it was!  For starters, they really are very very small when it comes to holding them.  My solution when it came to doing the thread whipping was to push its pointy end into a spare piece of harder balsa which made handling it much easier.  The body was the next problem but a sliver of balsa shaved off a, relatively massive piece of 5mm balsa stock was skewered with a 0.8mm piece of stainless steel wire as a mandrel and shaping was comenced (it did not take long ;)

Anyway, here are the finished pieces.  Photographed next to a fairly standard 5AAA avon that was being made at the same time for a customer - it really does put things into perspective when seen side by side.  A little bit of fun and something a bit different.  Now I no longer have to ‘’wonder if its possible?’’

In case anyone is tempted to ask - no, they are not for sale - that would be illegal ;)

As always, I would love to hear any feedback or comments.  Its a lonely life beavering away in my workshop all on my lonesome ;)