The hands were made from what I took to be salad forks, welded to some scrap aluminum plate.  The biggest challenge of this piece actually turned out to be the puzzle of attaching the arms to the torso.  The arms are simply a wooden clothes hanger cut in half, but the portion that was to be the shoulder was a very unusual shape and required fancy mounts made from many small pieces of metal welded together and then sanded until seamless.

In its final state, a brass knob on the sculptures belly allows the user to wind a spring motor which causes his one eye to slowly tick back and forth.  This was my first attempt at using a wind up motor and the main challenge proved to be its lack of torque.  It was an interesting exercise to build a mechanism that was so delicate.  My first attempt worked, but was so slow it was unacceptable.  I was later able to double the speed.  Its still slow, but now appears merely pensive rather than lethargic.  The final challenge was positioning a tiny limit switch for the single LED that illuminates the eye (an old door knob with a taxidermy eye glued to it).  Basically when one winds the motor, the spring contracts.  When it does, it allows the switch to open, turning on the LED.  Once the spring is sufficiently wound down, the LED turns off.  In this way the piece can run off two AA batteries for a long time without needing replacement. 

Once assembled, I decided that staining the wood elements black better supported the vaguely sinister nature of the piece.  I’ll post final photos and video in a few weeks once I finish up a few more pieces.