No. 4
I have always had a love affair with birds so when I look back on their evolutionary path and mangle that path up with a group of flying prehistoric reptiles that were closely related to dinosaurs, that's pretty cool.
Then throw the odd cross bow into the cauldron and we have a fantasy project.
The concept of the Pterosaur Bow was born.--- A steampunk/war and fantasy machine that I made in my humble workshop.
There are about 70 pictures showing how I made this art piece.
Here the specs.
450 hours build time.
1.2 carats of emerald.Citrine and peridot for the gem nuts.
One 12 carat Brazilian amethyst cut in a reflector cut.
One 8 mm amethyst cut in a brilliant cut.
Made of gold, silver, brass, copper, steel and glass.In a custom handmade display case.
If you want to know the price then the current minimum wage in the EU is 14 Euros/hour
Work it out yourself.
It is also, at this time, one of the few art pieces that have not been stolen from me , so there is that too.
See the video of the Pterosaur Bow

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If you read the Cannon Crossbow and the Dragon Cross bow, you will see that I have the basic miniature cross bow construction pretty well down.

Two flat 3 mm plates with the trigger wheel in between.

I cut the actual bow from an old wood saw that I bought.
This steel is slightly tempered and very springy, as wood saws tend to be.
I am also quite sure that the manufactures of this particular saw did not envisage that their saw blade was also excellent for making miniature cross bows.

Here is the basic bow and I am making and designing the top part of the body out of cardboard.

Once I have fabricated the top of the body out of 1 mm brass plate, I cut some wings out.
I have got quite a lot of leeway, but what is important is that I must be completely happy with the shape, because there will be a large amount of time and work invested in them.
And it would not be the first time in my career that I have to start from the beginning again.

The bottom of the wings were reinforced with brass stripping.

So now came the time to fit the actual bow unit into the top of the body.

Now I am starting to make the auto loader mechanism more formal.
The center rod will become the tail and the two side rods will be the feet.

This lever mechanism has immense pulling power.

A bit too much it seems.
Actually, I drilled too many holes in the bow and then it snapped.

No sweat, I made another bow with much smaller holes in it.

Nevertheless, It still shoots a bolt with an appreciable strength, like right through a writing pad from a 4 meter distance.

Here I am making the start of the legs.  I carve then using a tungsten carbide burr.

You can see the newly formed legs at the back of the pterosaur bow.
I always start something like the head with some cardboard.

I then cut out some 1 mm plate and shape it a bit.

Rough and ready.
I solder a little scrap piece on the top just to hold the neck apart while I fit it to the body.

Then I solder some sides onto the neck and jaw.

Then I cut the jaw and I also roll out some silver plate and start with the teeth.

Top and bottom.

So now I am getting a vague idea where I am going.

Here I have made the spring thingi that holds down the bolt when the bow shoots. I call it a feather, because it has a very light touch.
The bolt fits right through the neck of the pterosaur bow.

The two 'legs' pick up the bow string and start pulling it back towards the trigger wheel.

They pull it so that is just slips over the top of the trigger wheel.

And then the bow string is dropped behind the trigger wheel notch.

Once the string is behind the wheel, the tension is transferred to the wheel and the legs automatically raise themselves.

I made the claws for the legs.

The tail was made out of 6 mm rod that I file out on my lathe.

Here is the base tail. Later, I will texture and add more form to it.

Now I add the front 'bones' to the wings.

I kind of carve them like a bone shape because of the fossil idea. You know, like fossil bones and stuff.

Then I added the trailing edge trim onto the wings and also made the little claws to the front of the wings.

The wings were far to flat and mundane to leave like that.

I wanted to make them more 'vein-ey'
Like looking a bit like some veins that are on a ripped guy's forearms.

So I carved and polished them in an abstract way but still kept them more or less mirror images.

Then I added them to the wings.

The head had to have a bony front, so I made one out of sterling silver.

Once the bone thingi was made, I could sort of work out the size and manner of the eyes.

The eye tube also caused the silver thingi to be raised from the head, which I quite liked.
I could have cut a slit in the eye tube and lowered the bone thingi, but I thought it looks more radical when it was raised.

I was experimenting with the colour of the eyes and how light affects them.
I settled on orange glass rod, that I had over from my glass blowing experiments.

I made a silver threaded spike to hold the bone thingi neatly in place. Kind of goes with the attack vibe of this piece.

So now I came to finishing the body off. I made a proper trigger lever as well.

Then I snuck the trigger lever down through the wings.
I also cleaned up the body in preparation for polishing.

When I was a kid, I used to build Airfix models, and they always had a cool stand to put the models on.   I wanted a stand along those lines, with a bit more 'swoosh' because, you know, pterosaur stuff.

Bottom view, what the enemy sees as the pterosaur bow soars overhead.

Then I added some sterling silver accents on his cheeks.

I curled the ends of the accents because I think it looks cool and also to go with the forehead bone thingi.

And then I added some more accents below the crossbow on the side of the body.

Here is a close up with the accent being held in place with placer screws.

Then I carved a purple wax stand holder and I sand cast it into brass.

I turned some threads on it and then this was soldered to the swoosh stand.

This was then fitted into a hole that was drilled into the top of two steel plates that make up the stand.

Some decorative nuts I made for the base. The base is very heavy, so that there can be no accidental knocking over of the sculpture.    I remember this being a big problem with my Airfix models some 50 years ago. (I'm 63 years old, as of writing)

Now came the time to Booteek ( making pretty) the sculpture, as I call it.

The entire top surface of the wings were 'leathered'.
I take a 2 mm ball frazer and engrave the surface deeply. I imagine the original pterosaurs had a leathery surface on their wings.

I used Liver of Sulfur to give the bottom of the wings a mottled black look.

I replaced all the placer screws that were holding all the accent silver in place with sterling silver screws set with Zimbabwean Sandawana emeralds.

The silver accents were polished. In fact, everything was polished and stabilized with an anti tarnish coating

Here are some first light pictures.

I put quite a few gemstone into this sculpture.
Check the blackened accents.

I cut a fancy reflector type amethyst for the center of the loader.

Showing the black accents and a good view of all the gemstones.

Close up up of the head.     The tongue is made of 14 ct gold.

I faceted a Brazilian amethyst for the bolt feather.

Front view, swooping in for the kill.

And finally, I made a custom display to house the Pterosaur Bow.

Below is my contact email and other websites.

hansmeevis@gmail.com http://meevis.com/jewelry-catalog.htm https://www.jewelry-tutorials.com/ https://www.drill-straight-tools.com/