2011 Carving Year in Review

Hard to believe that another year is working its way into the history books.  It has been an interesting year in many ways but my purpose today is to look back at my carvings for 2011.  This has been the year when I returned to carving and have begun to refine my skills.  I had tinkered with carving back in the early nineties but never had the time to devote to it.  The tools sat in a box and I pondered getting rid of them many times.  Mostly when it was time to move and we moved several times between 1996 and 2002.  For some reason I did not and it has turned out to be a happy turn of events.

Here is a generous cross section of my projects in 2011.

This Santa is made from a wooden spool and has had some jingle bells added.

Santa ornament carved from a wooden egg.

Santa carved from an antique loom spool.  These were used for weaving fabric.

Here is a whole group of Santa ornaments being finished.

Here is another group.

 How about a hillbilly Santa.

Everyone needs a Santa Spoon.

Yep, More Santas.

Cat Ornament.  (Blaze - Laughing Cat)

Santa Spoon with a twist.

Santa Spoon yet another version

Old world version (This is one the few of my carvings that is not my pattern).

Happy Santa

I do carve things other than Santas, here are a couple of angels.

Here is a cross I carved for a gift.

More to come look for part two of this post in the next few days.

Keep carving.

Bruce

Wooden Crosses with Family Ties

Here are three crosses I recently carved.  The crosses are made from redwood and cedar.  The family ties come in from where I got the redwood and the cedar.  That is a bit of a story so here goes.

My father was an infinitely curious man.  He had quite a few hobby's over his lifetime (as have I which is why my mother was always proclaiming  "you are just like your father").  Very early in their marriage he turned to one of those hobby's to help make extra money.  He would work during the summer vacation (he was a teacher) as a carpenter.  For many years he pursued that at a lumberyard in Corpus called Priest Lumber.  They sold a lot of redwood patio furniture and my father was one of the carpenters they employed to make the furniture.  He at some point made a wooden file box from redwood 1/2 inch thick and 12 inches wide.  You would be hard pressed to find redwood of this size and type today.  Knot free and and after over 60 years still warp free.  However the box had seen its better days so I decided to cut it up and make a keep sake for family members from it.  So that is where the base crosses came from.

On one of the crosses I used cedar salvaged from a small cedar chest that had belonged to my mother as well as an old piece of costume jewelery that she had for as long as I can remember I believe she got it in 1965 when we visited my fathers mother in California.

One of the crosses was kept simple and I added a forged iron cross to it and finished it in a manner similar to the way my father finished untold thousands of plaster pieces over the years (but that is another hobby and another story).  High gloss lacquer.

The other has a middle cross made of poplar and a small top cross of turquoseite (commonly sold for affordable turquoise jewelry it however is not real turquoise).  Turquoise was a particular favorite of my mother.  The poplar was used because of the color variation from cream to green I found in that piece.

Cross 1

Cross 2

Cross 3

Hope all is well with you.

Go carve something!

Bruce

Currently on my Bench

Here are some of the items currently on my bench.

More to come.

Go Carve Something.

Bruce

Carved Cross

Here is the latest carved cross to come off my bench.  This was made for my son in law's parents.

Base cross is Poplar, middle cross is Honduran mahogany top cross is cast iron.

Carving is a guardian Angel.  This is my wife's favorite angel so it will probably show up on a few more things.

Happy Carving

Bruce

The Story of a Broken Bat

A few days ago I heard a chainsaw down the street.  You are probably wondering where I am going with this.  One of the reasons I started this blog is that I love wood.  Have all my life.  Like working with my hands and I am happiest when I am designing something new.  So a chainsaw to me means someone is cutting up a tree and a tree is wood.  Get it.  Some of my favorite wood to work in is found wood.  There is something about making something beautiful out of something that would have been discarded that appeals to me.  So even though it was cold I pulled on my jacket and headed off down the street.

Turns out I did not have far to go.  It was a neighbor just two doors down and he was indeed cutting down a sizable tree that was causing problems.  Then I realized it was a weeping willow tree.  One of the few trees that is really not worth anything not even firewood.  But as we stood and talked he came out of left center field (you will get the pun in a minute) with a question about could I carve anything from a broken baseball bat.  Most bats are made from ash, some from hickory and a few from maple.  Turns out what he had was ash.  I have never tried carving ash but told him I would give it a try.  He was interested in being able to salvage some small trinkets from the bats specifically if possible a cross.

So I ambled home with my new find and began to give it some thought.  How was I going to safely turn a round object into 1/2 inch slabs.  After a few shots it occurred to me to use my miter saw.  I only needed pieces about 5 inches long and the miter saw made quick work of getting me what I needed.  I laid out my first cross and the result is shown below.  The wood carved about like oak or mahogany and is not bad to work with. This particular cross I wanted to leave knife marks showing so that worked well as well.  All in all a pleasing project that took about two hours start to finish.  Knowing how I would carve this the next time it would probably take a little less.  But I am not good about repeating.  I like to keep trying new designs.

Here is the section of the bat I still have left.  A slab, the finished cross and an outer slab with a curve.  This particular bat was a Toronto Blue Jays version.

Here is a closeup of the cross.  I will be posting the pattern in the next few days as soon as I figure out how to set up a pattern section.  Patterns will be JPEGS.  Look for an article soon on how to re size using JPEGS.

I have a few more designs for these that will also begin showing up in the next few days.

For now though, go make some wood chips!

Bruce