Woodpeckers at rest tend to stay at rest...and Procrastination

2017 Update

So nearly a year has gone by with no change at all to my website.  The Website at this point is a placeholder.  I knew it when I made it and that is still the case today.

However, I am making some progress toward the making and selling of toys.  I became frustrated with not finding the time or the energy to start on any of the dozens of ideas that I had years ago so I chose one, an articulated woodpecker toy to begin designing and producing.  It is a small, carved Downey Woodpecker which is perched on the side of a tree.  There is a button on the top of the tree, which when pressed will cause the bird to peck the tree. 

I made the prototype decades ago, and it has sat on various desks and shelves for all this time, waiting for me to make something more of it.  Back when I first made it I just whittled a generic bird shape.  It didn't look at all like a Woodpecker.  The "Woodpecker" wasn't perched on a tree, just a rectangular block of wood that housed the simple mechanism that caused the pecking action. 

To make it a product back 35 years ago, I needed to do several things, I needed the bird to look like a Woodpecker, I needed to design the action to fit into a tree-shaped block and I needed to redesign the action to utilize a return spring to allow a more rapid and satisfactory pecking action.

Back then this presented several problems.  In order to find out what a Woodpecker looked like, I needed to either go to a library or to a museum to look at taxidermy models and sketch.  I had no idea where to find springs that were the right size and weight.  The internet was years away and I was ignorant of suppliers that would sell me what I wanted.  Obstacles.

With diligence and hard work I could have overcome these obstacles, but to do that I would have had to walk out the door to an uncertain future.  This pathway would take me past the refrigerator, where we kept the beer, and I am easily distracted.

But now I can see a picture (or a thousand pictures) of Woodpeckers with a few clicks on the phone.  I have spent the intervening decades designing mechanical assemblies and I know where to buy anything I might need, and I am currently out of beer. 

So things are now actually happening!  I will post more about this soon!

David Carroll
1/26/2017