On Thu, 2 Jun 2005 20:23:31 +0100, "Nick" babbled
like a waterfall and said:

A strange request perhaps.
SWMBO has tasked me to convert a clean, blown, natural ostrich egg into a
container for a specific purpose.
The egg is approx. 6.5 x 5.0 inches (165 x 127mm) and 2-3 mm thick. Makes
the eyes water just thinking about it!
Can be cut either longways or sideways.
As this is a one-off and we only have 1 egg, I would like to get it right
first time. Also only a week to produce the finished article, to include
hinge, fastener, turned base etc.
Any experience or thoughts on such stupidity please?

I have a decent range of hand & power tools but have never worked on
anything this fragile.

Many thanks

Nick.

Yes, first make up a sand bed for the egg. Make a hole in the sand to
support the egg and then score around the line to be cut with a
Stanley knife. This is S l o w a n d g e n t l e stuff. Then use a
fine toothed tenon saw. The idea is lots of scratching rather than
sawing.

HTH