Today is: Thursday, April 18, 2024 12:02 pm
Thank you for visiting JaxWhirligigs.
If you have visited JaxWhirligigs before you may notice a change with our web site, to make a long story short we had to move our hosting provider and as we had to move anyway I decided to completely redo our web site. Regardless of whether you have visited before or are a new visitor we hope you enjoy your visit and feel free to Contact JaxWhirligigs anytime 🙂
JaxWhirligigs By Bob Johnson is home to Wood Winged Whirligigs, Hand Crafted in Jacksonville, Fl. USA. Whirligigs are also known as pinwheels, buzzers, comic weathervanes, gee-haws, spinners, whirlygigs, whirlijig, whirlyjig, whirlybird, or plain whirly.
Whirligigs are a Folk Art form that was most popular in the late 1800s to early mid 1900s, which now could be considered a dying art form, in that there are fewer and fewer Whirligig Crafters making them today.
Inexpensive, long lasting, Yard Art for gardens or yards, starting at $25.00 and up, including PVC yard stake! Make sure to check our News and Information page for new Whirligigs and Upcoming events as well as our Calendar for our Market and Craft Show dates.
Our Whirligigs:
Each Whirligig body is made from select knot free whitewood, the wings from solid knot free whitewood, and hand painted with a base of exterior prime coat and Quality top coat paints (Behr Marquee Exterior and Behr Int/Ext High Gloss) then coated with a clear acrylic latex. Whirligigs are assembled with nylon bearings and washers with 18-8 Stainless Steel screws…
Every Whirligig comes with a PVC yard stake that will resist rot and damage from weed trimmers.
Bob is the WhirligigGuy and Selene (his much better half) the WhirligigGal helps with priming and bouncing ideas 😉 . Each Whirligig is made in our Jacksonville Westside backyard where the WhirligigGuy works every day on our Whirligigs.
Whirligigs have been around for 100’s of years and were common in the 1800 and 1900’s. Sadly, as with other forms of Folk Art, they are not as common today. We love Whirligigs and are trying to keep this old Folk Art alive right here in Northeast Florida, for everyone to enjoy. Whirligigs are a great addition to Yards and Gardens for a little touch of something special! Whirligigs also make great gifts for Christmas, new House Owners and… just because 😉
JaxWhirligigs History:
I got started building Whirligigs over 11 years ago. Selene and her Mother went up to Tenn to see some family and passed an old fashioned road side stand selling Whirligigs. They bought a few and when they got home we put them in the yard. The next trip they got some more. The “Woodworker” was the name of the stand and unfortunately “The Woodworker” has now passed…
After a couple of years the leg on the Frog Whirligig we had was broken and I thought I would try and fix it. Well after a little trial and bad words… I finally made my first Whirligig wing, or leg in this case, and it worked 🙂 Next I thought why not make a new whirligig from scratch, so I took that same Frog and used it as a template and made my very first Whirligig and it WORKED 🙂
I needed a hobby so I said to Selene how about I build some more Whirligigs and she said sure, Ha Ha little did she (or I) know…
I did some research, did some tests of my own and figured out how to make Whirligigs safely, trust me my first whirligigs were not made safely… After a while we discovered I was making more Whirligigs than we could fit in our yard. At that point we looked for some craft shows to try and sell them. We found a Craft Show at St. Catherine’s Catholic church on Kingsley Ave in Orange Park and lo and behold we almost sold all we had and got orders for more… And that is what got JaxWhirligigs on the way!