I'm working on a sculpture (of a gibbon swinging on a branch) which will be made of wood and wax with a wire armature, and I'm trying to figure out how to anchor my armature to the branch.

Here's a quick drawing of the intended setup:
[![Diagram of construction](https://i.stack.imgur.com/M5WL8.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/M5WL8.jpg)

The branch is a natural, hardwood branch, about 3/4" in diameter and about 10" long. It's quite strong. One end of the branch will be anchored in a block of wood. Somewhat close to the other end I need to attach a strong wire armature, which needs to be able to hold, say, 8-10 ounces of wax altogether. The tricky bit is the angle: I need that wire to come out from the branch at a 45-or-so-degree angle as shown above, and since it'll have the weight of the wax pulling down on it, it has to be anchored very sturdily in the branch.

My current thought is cutting a channel in the top of the branch from the point where the armature attaches heading toward the anchor, so the wire would poke through the branch, be bent and then run through the channel; fill the channel with epoxy or something, and paint over the top. It's less than perfect because I'd love to preserve the bark... also, the actual cutting of the channel doesn't seem very easy at all to me.

My question, then: Is the wire-in-the-channel idea the best option? If so, how should I go about cutting that channel? Or, is there a better way to do this that I haven't thought of?

Many thanks!