Making Egrets from PVC Pipe

This week, the boys and I got busy and made 10 white egret figures to be sold at a fund-raising concert for the benefit of the IMC ministry.

We've known for quite a while how to make these figures, but just hadn't just hadn't put the pedal to the metal until now.  The man that taught us how to make these beautiful figures of a white egret cut from PVC pipe was Henry Van Barneveld from Canada.  Henry makes them every now and then to sell at craft fairs.  They really are attractive and fairly simple to make. 

The 2008 Canadian team, l to r, Stu, Scott, Jack, and Henry

Henry, and three other members of Zurich Mennonite Church in Ontario, Canada, came to Granja Peniel in September 2008, where they worked for more than a week making many improvements to the workshop.   Thanks, again, Henry, and the rest of the team, for all your help and support - it is still paying dividends!



Fabian Perdomo cutting, Anderson Mora and David Rocha holding the pipe.

 The first step in making the birds is to mark out the shape on a 3-foot long piece of 4" PVC pipe, using a pattern.  Henry left us two patterns to use, one large size and one smaller one.  Then we cut out the shape using a jigsaw.  Sounds easy enough, but if your technique is poor, the plastic just vibrates and won't cut...


Then the boys drill holes for the eyes and mounting screws.

And apply some heat to bend the plastic into a shape more representative of the bird...

Finally, glue on the eyes with some hot silicone...

Duvan Guayara drilling the hole for the rebar spud

And cut some short logs to mount the birds on, attaching three wraps of white rope near the top and a rebar spud to stick into the ground....

And you're ready to send them off to market.  Actually, the marketing here is the hard part...so far we only sold two of the birds, even with a rather low price of $20,000 pesos (about $11 US).  Apparently, Colombians haven't yet arrived at the point of appreciating yard ornaments?

But the boys and I had some fun making them, and they are strikingly beautiful.  Perhaps it will just take a while before they catch on, let's hope!