Crafty Things

A thread for sharing crafted things! Artwork that doesn't fit elsewhere, woodcarving (in my case), pottery, Patented Scottish Grime-B-Gone for those persistent and ever-appearing buckie stains (patent pending actually but don't tell anyone that), whatever!

After months of neglect I finally finished the little hiker that I've been working on. I missed my dad's birthday (it was yesterday) but I'm going to send this to him as a late birthday present. Design credit goes to Richard Bütz, from whose helpful book I got this idea.








P.S.
I just realized I forgot the eyebrows. I guess it's not quite ready to send yet.

Looks good even without the eyebrows, Forest.

That's really cool Forest.

Nicely done Forest!

What kind of wood did you use?

Well unfortunately I didn't have a good supply sitting around of good carvable wood, so I dragged this old redwood log up from the stream and sawed up a chunk of that to use instead. The wood was, well first of all, redwood, which made it not the best for carving with its uneven grain, but secondly it was a bit brittle from being partially waterlogged over the years and then drying a lot (I guess) so carving it was a bit of a pain.

So redwood anyway. And the base is basswood. And the stick is old plum.

My dad sent out a few planks of basswood (otherwise known as a Lime tree (not the one that produces limes), or Linden), which is this amazingly soft wood. I'm trying out some relief carving with it, which is not going quite as horribly as I expected. I'm hoping to get better at it eventually.
What I really want to try is chip-carving. It's part of my ancestor's Norwegian heritage, and can look really cool as well. I just feel a bit silly buying new knives for it when I haven't really much used the set of gouges and chisels that my dad sent me. I'm quite new to woodworking, but I like it a lot so far.

Right now I'm carving chess pieces from some branches we trimmed off a pine or something in the yard last year. Four of the pieces I finished while I was in Minnesota visiting. We have these cedars up in the woods, and I gathered some short lengths of dead wood to carve while I was there. Cedar wood is ridiculously good-smelling, I must say.

Forest, I'm even more impressed, knowing is started as a random piece of redwood.  That crossgrain can be brutal!

Are you far enough north to have red alder?  It's our fast growing firewood around here (WA coast), but it's got a wonderful property for carving. If you carve it when it's green, it carves like butter. No grain at all really!

If you then keep it damp and let it dry very slowly, it will become hard as a rock! (well, a very soft rock,,, but still!  ) If you let it season to quickly though, it'll warp and split, especially thicker pieces.

Again, I don't know if you have it where you are, but if you do you should try a piece.

Just barely from the look of this range map!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alnus_rubra#/media/File:Alnus_rubra_range_map_1.png

That being said, I don't think I've seen it around, that I've noticed anyway.
We do have some poplars on our property, I'm not sure which kind. But otherwise, it's mostly just redwoods, eucalyptus, coast live oaks, willows, some buckeye (not sure what kind), some wild plums and a few walnut trees.

I really don't like live oaks. Oak is an excellent strong wood of course, but live oaks are just the worst in my opinion. They have these horrid spiky leaves, they smother plants growing underneath them with their endless leaves (except poison oak and wild blackberries of course, go figure), they're inelegant and tangly with all their dead branches, and don't even smell nice.

There's also an old olive grove up at the top of the property, with trees about 25 feet tall. It's grown wild now and noone tends it, which gives it a kind of mysterious feel to it.

That is lovely Forest, & a lovely present to give, as its "homemade" Which I always enjoy to the max. Ive enjoyed 'hearing' you guys discuss tress & wood. I may not know as much as you about types of wood but, I adore woods, forests, trees, the out door life & creativity using wood. I love the scents, the feel of wood, the peace & calm. My fav tree ( apart from the good old English oak ) is a silver birch & at this time of the year in good old Blighty, the trees are getting dolled up & looking good

 nice work!

Well I got my new chip-carving knives the other day. They're the Wayne Barton design, so basically a modified and simple Swiss design. They're nice because you only need two knives for this style of chip-carving. Chip-carving was practiced everywhere traditionally it seems, considering how basic of a mechanic is involved (cutting chips out of a, generally, flat piece of wood.) The Germans and Scandinavian styles use more variety of knives, and the English style involves actual gouges and such-like. Or so I've heard.

Anyway, the new knives are nice. I sharpened them both as they had a rather roughly-sharpened edge, and although the bevel on the what-do-you-call-it, slicey one is not as straight as in the book in which I read about them, they seem to cut quite nicely. Here's a picture from online:


The "slicey" one is below, and the... "pushey" (?) one is on top. I really can't remember the names, whatever.

Do you make spoons? I have a friend goes to spoon crafting fair every year.

My idea of craft is, improvisation. Im constantly either having to make something up as I cant afford the original or, just cuz I can do it myself Its fum being "arty farty crafty" putting your own 'stamp' on things

Indeed Azriel! Why buy cheap foreign-made junk that breaks after a year or two (and need to be replaced, how convenient for certain retailers) when you can make your own stuff that can serve you well for a lifetime!

And no Petty, I've only ever made one spoon and that was when I was 14 or so and it came out a bit rough.

I was thinking of making a Cribbage board actually, and send that back to my dad and grandmother. I figure it'd be an easy starting project for this chip-stuff.

But tell me, where is this spoon-crafting fair, somewhere local or down south? Have you seen your friends collection, so to speak? And is wood-working a commonly practiced tradition where you live Petty?

I also splurged and ordered a new planer. It's a pretty nice one and certainly superior (I think) to the one that my dad left here when he moved away. That planer was a smaller metal model that lacked the comfy wooden bits for your hands, was rather rusty, and cut deeper on one side no matter how I fiddled with it. To be honest I feel rather indulgent buying these nice things for myself, but I guess that's kind of what you do as an adult. If you can afford it anyway.

Its called Spoonfest and I think it moves about- this year its in England-

http://spoonfest.co.uk/

I wouldn't say spoons in particular were a commonly crafted thing, but whittling and carving in general is still quite common round here. Shepherds still carve their own heads for crooks out of sheep horn or some similar substance, and some round here do there crafting by chainsaw-

Spoonfest eh?

Well that looks pretty fun Petty! As for chain-saw carving, well... It strikes me as kind of cheating, like fishing with dynamite.
A horridly-loud and messy method in place of the delightful rip of the handsaw, the wooden thwock-thwock of the mallet and the swish of the planer. Most un-Tolkienish in my opinion!

Forest Shepherd wrote:A thread for sharing crafted things! Artwork that doesn't fit elsewhere, woodcarving (in my case), pottery, Patented Scottish Grime-B-Gone for those persistent and ever-appearing buckie stains (patent pending actually but don't tell anyone that), whatever!

After months of neglect I finally finished the little hiker that I've been working on. I missed my dad's birthday (it was yesterday) but I'm going to send this to him as a late birthday present. Design credit goes to Richard Bütz, from whose helpful book I got this idea.








P.S.
I just realized I forgot the eyebrows.     I guess it's not quite ready to send yet.

That looks great, Forest, nice piece of handicraft there When we were kids, I used to make all sorts of (crappy) stuff with a friend. We still hang out whenever we can, but I'm afraid our crafting days are over We tried making chess pieces once, but we never finished the set. Great idea for a thread, keep the pics coming

A horridly-loud and messy method in place of the delightful rip of the handsaw, the wooden thwock-thwock of the mallet and the swish of the planer. Most un-Tolkienish in my opinion! - Forest

No but you get to the pub a lot earlier

Unless you chop both your arms off!

Then you can only drink buckie through a flimsy straw the rest of your life and people make jokes about how handy you are to have around and how you really over-did it when they asked you if you could lend them a hand.

I finally finished my stupid door-carving. I had so much other stuff taking up my non-work free-time that I decided to skip the nice carvings on it and just finished up the double-border chip-carved design instead. So I stained it and sealed it today, and hopefully I can get it hung up before my mom comes back next Monday. The only problem is that the current door-frame isn't the right size, so I need to cut into the wall and form it correctly. I'll get a picture up perhaps, if I can borrow my sister's phone for the task.

Id like to see your work ? I love all that natural "Arts n Crafts"

I actually have dark thoughts about talented people. It dosn't seem right to me.

You funny thing

I would like to see your door carving Forest.

Me too.

And where you been hiding Orwell? Under your remaining cranberry plant? Well get out! We miss you! Bloody Ozhobbits

I have so N)T been hiding! I've been indisposed. And it's two cranberries btw... and flowering! I may have a crop yet.