The Moment you have All Been Waiting For!

The finished pics of the Wood elf. Cheryl and I just posted the entry in the woodcraft contest. Wish us luck! There are a lot of really great carvings on the gallery already. I have sized up the competition and feel like I have a handful of serious competitors. However, you just never know with judges. The carvings range from full 3-d carvings to love spoons and everything in between. Well here are the five final pics that we chose to enter. We took several dozen! but ended up with these. We didn't get a good pic of the hands, or chest, but you can still see them in the full body shots. It would have been cool to show off more, but the entry only calls for five pics max. I guess you have to put a limit somewhere. Enjoy! With that out of the way, I may get started on my next masterpiece. I'm not sure if she should be a compliment to the last one or something completely different. Who knows! At the very least she will most likely be female.

Wood Elf Day 17 More sanding.. so that is what those files are for..

Continuing on the sanding note I spent about 7 hours sanding about 2/3 of her. I'm sure it could be one of those jobs that is never quite finished. I have set for myself this standard: Sand it to the touch! Meaning that it should feel nice and smooth when you run your hand over it. So for the time being, I have been using every small sanding tactic at my disposal. I power sand when I can, but for most of the little detail, I just have to wrap a small piece of sand paper around my fingers and work at it. I have added a little detail to the jewelry on her head and ear. And I found the true purpose of those little files I bought several months back from Woodcraft. I thought they were not very effective as files for smoothing out wood, However, they seem to work really well for removing the small wood fibers under the leaves and between the fingers. Knowing this, I wish I had bought the rasps instead of the files for a little more aggressive wood removal. Anyway. there really is not any way to show much progress with pics, so i just snapped a few to post. Enjoy!

Another Woodcraft visit.

Today we went to woodcraft in GrandRapids for my Christmas present. I know it is not much of a surprise if you know the gift ahead of time. Then again we are old enough to just find something we want and buy it instead of having our loved one guess what it is we truly want. So I really needed a new #5 chisel to replace the old one I have been using ( it's one of my favorite chisels in my arsenal) As mentioned in a previous post, it must be made of a metal that does not like rough handling, because it keeps chipping. Pretty soon I won't have any of the chisel left to grind down and resharpen! IN addition to that, I got a 25mm V-tool. I have several smaller ones, but none of them help me much with larger carvings. I decided to go as big as I could and See where it takes me. I will probably start on a new project tomorrow. I can't wait! Oh and I have not posted any barbershop tunes lately! i found several new ones on YouTube. Enjoy!

The Frustration of carving green timber

Well, Along with the joy has to come some sorrow right? I'd love to tell everyone that this is a joyous event spending countless hours chipping away at a large project. However, There are a few small frustrating parts that are just a bear to work with. Namely knots and dense layers of wood around any crotch. I have a couple of small examples here, but mostly the entire area around the cat is REALLY hard! Now you might say,"So what? It is wood after all, And Oak to boot!" Well, here is where the sorrow comes in. This is what it does to my ancient chisels, I go in shallow, I go in without the mallet, is doesn't seem to matter. This is really a job of power tools, but even they get clogged up or blunted. It was getting pretty bad because I would constantly have to file/grind down Grandpa's chisels and I'm afraid that I might just grind them down to nothing! Well, the good news is that today we went to woodcraft and I got a new #9 gouge that is hopefully strong enough to take those knots a little better. I'm still not going to whack away at them with reckless abandon, but at least there is lots of metal to resharpen if anything goes wrong. Plus a new chisel will take a little pressure off the other three I have!

Tree Carving day 7

OK really it has been more than 7 days, but some of that time was lost because of weather or daylight. But tonight I used my chainsaw to help out with the roughing of the body. I should have waited for the chainsaw before I dove into it before. But I was eager to get started. Anyway, I started by cutting slices into the wood about 2-3 inches deep. Then I chipped out the chunks with on of the roughing chisels. Then I repeat the process until it is about the shape I need it to be to start smoothing it out. The cat was nice enough to help out...again. I spent the rest of the night just trying to smooth it out and get the chainsaw marks off of it.My arm is KILLING ME! Nothing quite like tennis elbow from swinging a mallet all day. I was thankful when I finally got to the part where I could just push the chisel instead of swinging the mallet all the time. It started raining so I decided that that was a good time to call it for the night. It's predicted to rain again tomorrow, but Cheryl and I have to get ready for the family meeting on thanksgiving. Oh! Woodcraft has sent me a $10 coupon good until Christmas! They are also having a carving competition where the winner gets to go to Switzerland! Who knows, I may just enter!

What a busy day!

So much has happened that I should have blogged twice or even three times today! First: In case you missed it, last night was a meteor shower. And I saw the most amazing falling start ever! Picture if you will a flaming piece of white phosphorus falling from the sky! The leaves are all down so our backyard was a perfect place to see them. Second: I got to go to the mecca of woodworking....Woodcraft! I was so befuddled that I could not even answer the simplest of questions the associates asked me. Take a look at the chisel selection! When it was all said and done, I went slightly over my budget. I bought some rifters, a sanding belt, and a short bend chisel. Then it was home to the tree carving. I made some progress tonight on the face. And the cat, making it look a little more like a cat and less like a bear. The face still needs some work, and I'm trying to make her smile without looking creepy. But...it's late now and dark and cold, so I'm calling it for the night. the meteor shower should still be going on tonight. I saw most of them facing east. But that may be different in your area. If you do...be sure to make a wish!