Santa

Hi all,
In my last post I showed you the model of Shelfie Santa thatI had made from Plasticine to aid with the carving of one from wood. It has been a bit of a long haul, but today I finished most of the carving.

I've still got to texture his beard with a vainer and the wife is going to paint it. Overall, I'm very pleased with how it has gone even though it was hard work. I started with a square piece of lime wood and due to the odd shape I had to remove a lot of material.

Here is a picture of the Plasticine model and the carving side by side.

The only thing I don't like about the carving is that the face came out a bit flat. This apparently is the hall mark of a novice carver so I'm running true to type.

I have done several carving now and I'm quiet surprised to find that I enjoy carving with a knife, more enjoyable than power carving. I do use a Dremel in a flexi-shaft for a bit of sanding and, tidying up with diamond burrs, but I prefer not to use burrs for major material removal. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, I don't feel as I have half as much control when using the burrs and secondly. there is something deeply satisfying about removing wood with a knife. Perhaps it is just instinct, or an urge from our predecessors when a knife was used for many thing, not least survival.

The biggest problem with knife carving for me is that if I do it for too long my wrist begins to ache so I have to limit my carving to about a hour a day. No matter there are plenty of other things to get on with that keep my creative juices flowing.

While I was resting from the Santa, I was doing another egg for my collection. This one is meant to be a bit like cherry blossom. I drew the flowers and leaves on by hand and then outlined them with my pyrography iron using a spoon tip. Then I painted the flowers using Derwent Intense blocks. I used Inktense because they have a brilliant range of colours and when they dry they are permanent.

After the painting, I gave it several coats of melamine lacquer to protect it and give it a bit of shine.

Just a reminder, if you want to see more of my creative work, which includes, woodturning, woodcarving, pyrography and artwork, please visit my website and take a look at the galleries.

Not sure what will be in my next post yet, but I feel the need to spin some wood so it might be a vase.

Shelfie

Hi all,
I haven't done much turning lately due to a succession of jobs that the wife wanted me to do, including the sighting of a freestanding cooker, but more about that later.

First I would like to show you my new shelfie.

I carved it from lime and allowed my wife the pleasure of painting it. She did a good job eventually. I say eventually, because her first attempt was dire. She did it in dark green and red which made it look glum. I had to sand all the paint off and let her do it again. Anyway, all is well that ends well and it now looks very nice in the bathroom.

My next carving is going to be a Santa shelfie but I have a feeling it is going to take quite a while to do it. I've gone as far as making a model from Plasticine.

If you are thinking of doing any carving I can tell you that making a little model is invaluable.

I've also got it in my mind to turn another long desk pen that I have just started so I will show you that in my next post as long as my wife doesn't come up with too many jobs.

Last week saw me fitting a new freestanding cooker. The old one was built in with a separate hob which meant that I had to cut the work surface. I didn't fancy the task one bit but had no choice because the electrician, who was disconnection the supply to the old cooker and wiring up the new one, said he didn't cut work surfaces in case something went wrong.

The jig saw that came with my second wife 25 years ago didn't look like it was going to do a good job of cutting a straight line so I shelled out £40 for one from Screwfix . It said it had a laser light for accurate cutting, I thought this was just a gimmick but it worked well beyond my expectations and the job was a success. The only sad part was the fact that I purchased 2 metal strips to go on the ends of the work surface between cooker and the work surface. I paid £8 each for them from B&Q which I thought was a bit steep for a very thin piece of metal.

Anyway, I cut them to length, smeared them with a bit of sealant and screwed them on. I then found out that the gap where the cooker was going was now too narrow to accept it. I do wish designers would get their act together. The cabinet carcass I took out was 600mm wide and the cooker I purchase was 600mm wide which meant there was no space between for the metal strips which were only 1mm thick. If I was designing a cooker to fit in a 600mm gap I would make it 595mm wide to give the customer a couple on mm to play with.

Ha well, it's in now. If anybody wants to buy a couple of work surface endstrips in black, please let me know.

Lastly, I just want to let you know that I have revamped my website. It was very confusing before and now I have made it better. It is now easy to find pictures of my work in galleries. If you go there you will find galleries for my woodturnings, pyrography, artwork and carvings. Here's the link please take a look an let me know what you think.

Book and Egg

Hi all,
Just a quick one to let you know one of my books "The Reluctant Pom" is currently free to download from Amazon. Here is the link. Please grab a copy now and have a good laugh.

I mentioned in my last post that I was doing another Pyrography egg, this time with a harebell design. Well here it is, finished with several coats of melamine lacquer.

It has come out really well and you can see that I have used the none outline method and I think it works really well. Please let me know what you think.

Well that's it for now, short and sweet because I just didn't want you missing out on a free book. The free offer is open from today until Saturday, I hope you enjoy it.

yellow pen and shelfie

Hi all,
In my last post I said I would show you the pen I was about to turn and another shelfie. Well here is the pen.

Yellow and black and puts me in mind of wasps, of which there are many at the moment. I keep a swatter by my side at all times whilst sitting in the garden. I know there a few people who are of the opinion that if you leave wasps alone they wont hurt you, well if you think that, I' sorry , but it is only a matter of time before you get stung. My mother in law and my step daughter were both in the live and let live camp until they were stung this year. Suddenly they have gone off wasps.

Anyway, back to the pen. It wasn't supposed to be that colour. When I first turned it and cut in the beads I tried to make it look like basket weave. So, I coloured in a pattern with red and black markers and left some of the squares the natural wood colour. I'll be honest with you, it was crap, so I lightly turned the colours away and re did the pyrography lines. I'm very pleased with the pyrography, the long lines were marked out using the indexing facility on my lathe, and burnt in with my Peter Childs pyrography iron. The lines which go around the pen were burnt in by holding a piece of veneer in the groove that was left by the beading tool. The colouring was done with a yellow Winsor and Newton pro marker and I think it has come out rather well.

Right, onto the Shelfie. This one is a little bit smaller than the first one I did and he has his eyes under his hat. I made it small because I wanted to see what he looked like painted.
Here is the original that I recently posted.

And here is the new one, which I have painted.

Not sure which is best, so I'm going to do one the same size as the first and paint that to see what it looks like. I'm also working on a new pyrography egg for my collection. This one has a harebell design on it. I will hopefully show you them in my next post. My only problem at the moment is time. My mrs has a list of jobs for me to do including fitting a new cooker. Not an easy job because it will entail cutting a space in the work surface, please keep your fingers crossed for me and I will tell you how I got on in my next post.

Shelfie

Hi All,
Sorry I know it's been a couple of weeks since I've done a post but I have been really ill with the cold from hell. I'm getting on for seventy years old and I've had my fair share of colds and never resorted to calling them the flu, I've had the flu and believe me it is twenty times worse than a cold. Anyway, this cold was the worst I've ever had, it lasted almost, 3 weeks so you can tell how bad it was.

Still, I did manage to do a bit of whittling. I wanted to try more figure carving, so I followed a video on youtube made by a carver called Gene Messer. Below is the result and not bad considering he doesn't show any pictures at the beginning, so you have no idea what the finished result is supposed to look like. until you are done. I call the figure "The foreman" miserable as sin and hands in his pockets is what most people think of when you mention a foreman.

If you fancy having a go, here is a link to the video.

I quite enjoyed following the video and I picked up a few tips along the way, and armed with that information I decided to have a go at doing a shelf sitter of my own design. If you are not familiar with the term "shelf sitter," it is just something that sits on the edge of a shelf usually with the legs dangling down. I don't like the term shelf sitter so I called mine a shelfie.

He was carved from a piece of 1.5 inch square lime wood.

I think he looks kind of cute even though his face is a little bit flat. Flat faces are the trade mark of the novice figure carvers, so I've obviously got a lot to learn. I have been surprised by how much help there is on youtube for  those who would like to carve figures. I would recommend it to anybody because it has all the ingredient of a great pastime.

1) Very little equipment is required, a carving knife that cost about £9 and a carving glove that cost a fiver. is all you need to get started. You will need a lump of wood of course but you can start with pine from your nerest DIY shop.

2) It takes up very little space. You can even do it in the lounge if you want to by catching all the shaving on a lap tray. While the weather has been sunny I have been sitting on a chair in the garden whittling away without a care in the world.

3) It is a great hobby for those who want to be creative. You can either follow plans and patterns from books or design something of you own.

4) Your creations can be used to decorate your own home, used for gifts or even sold.

5) Raw materials in the form of Lime wood is relatively cheap especially in small sizes if you get it from a proper timber merchant like G and S timber.

Anyway, it is certainly one of the best hobbies that I have tried and I've tried quite a few.

So what's next? Well I've got a yearning to turn another pen and I've had thoughts about that shelfie. Part of me wants to paint it because I think it might look better, but I'm worried about spoiling it. So I will probably do a similar one and see how it looks when it has been decorated. I will show you them both in my next post.

Quickie

Hi All,
Just a quickie to you know that I have a free book offer running that might be of interest to some of you. The book is called "Carp Rustlers" and is the first in a series featuring, "The fishing Detectives."

Please download a free copy from Amazon and have a good laugh. I hope you enjoy it. To get your free copy just follow this link.

The book will only be free until Saturday 15th of September so why not do it now.

By the way, I've also finished another pen that should have been turned from a piece of holly. The bloke next door knew I did a bit of wood turning, so when he cut down a small holly bush he asked me if I wanted the trunk. You could hardly call it a trunk because it was only about an inch and a half thick at the most. Anyway, I accepted it and promised to make him a pen from it. This was about a year ago, I knew it would be no good doing it straight away because the wood would be too wet and it would crack when it dried out.

Anyway, I left it for about a year and then at the week-end I decided to give it a go. I cut two pieces to be used for pen blanks, turned them down a bit and then drilled the holes for the tubes. At this point I didn't know if the wood would still crack, so I didn't glue the tubes in yet because I didn't want to wast them. I decided I'd wait a couple of days and see what happened. Well I'm glad I did because the very next day one of the blanks had a big split in it.

I know some people get pleasure from turning wet or unseasoned wood, but I'm getting too old to be bothering with wood the splits. So now on it will be season wood only for me.

To rescue the situation, I made a pen from fully seasoned piece of lime.

The black lines are pyrography and the colouring was done with markers. It then had several coats of melamine lacquer. Looks nice enough for me and the bloke next door said he was chuffed with it so everybody is happy. I've been doing a bit more carving and will show you that in my next post.
PS, Don't forget to download the book.

Eggs

Hi all,
Some of you may know that I purchased a lathe so that I could turn my own pieces of wood for my pyrography projects. It has worked out very well but sometimes there is no need to bother with wood turning at all. Recently, my wife ordered some eggs off Amazon with a view to painting them, I said I could turn her some but didn't want to put me to trouble. When the eggs arrived I was amazed at the quality and the price so I nicked one for a bit of pyrography.

I drew on some honeysuckle and set about it with my pyrography iron and it came out well. The price of the eggs was so cheap and certainly not worth me making them on the lathe. Here is the link on Amazon

These eggs are perfect for pyrography and I have decided to do a bowl full of them to sit on our coffee table with a variety of designs. I did another one almost straight away, but this time a drew a random flower pattern on the egg.

I also tried a different pyrography technique. Usually, and in the case of the honeysuckle egg, my process is to draw the flowers and leaves and then outline them with my spoon tipped pyrography iron. I then shade in the rest.

However, for this flower pattern, I didn't bother with outlining and just went straight in with the shading. It is hard to pick up the difference from photos, but in reality it gives a much more pleasing effect. It certainly takes away some of the harshness and leaves the object smooth to the touch. I shall be trying it again soon.

If there is one difficulty with doing pyrography on eggs, it is the finishing part. I like to give mine a couple of coats of melamine lacquer to give them some shine and protection, but they are difficult to hold whilst applying to lacquer. So seeing that I'd decided to do a bowl full of them, I made myself a little jig to make the finishing easier.

Here it is in all its glory. A couple of nails glued into dowels and a frame to support them. It only took about a hour to make and works wonderfully.

All comments welcome.