Carving

Hi all,
I'm afraid I'm going to have to give up carving wood. I only did it for about a year an have enjoyed most of it, but it has come to an end. Here's why.
You may recall that I was going to do another shelfie based on this character that I modelled with Plasticine.

I drew out the design on piece of lime wood and cut a big chunk out behind the legs so that I wouldn't have so much wood to remove with my knife.

I cut that piece of wood out with my bandsaw and was all set to chop a few more corners off but the blade came off the wheel on the bandsaw. This was most annoying. I tried to get the blade back on the wheels and managed that, but it didn't seem to want to stay on. It is a hobby bandsaw from Axminster so not that robust. I use it infrequently and slacken off the tension when I'm not going to use it for a bit. Anyway, either I'm crap at setting up bandsaws or the saw is temperamental, probably a bit of both.

So given these problems with the saw I decided that I'd just have to cut all the wood out with my knife. I was doing pretty well, here you can see I've started to remove some wood.

It was a lovely sunny afternoon and I was sitting in the garden when disaster stuck. I lost concentration and managed to slice through a finger on the hand that was holding the wood. Blood was flowing freely so I legged it up to the house and got some kitchen towel around it while my wife sorted out some plasters. I held the wound together in an attempt to stop the flow of blood and quickly wrapped it in plasters.

It turns out that it wasn't as bad as I first thought it was, but even so it was a shock to the system.

Why weren't you wearing a safety glove I hear you ask? Well here is the sad thing about the whole episode. I was wearing a glove, but I'd put it on the hand that was holding the knife. Very funny really, but very dangerous. I hope it was just tiredness and lack of concentration that allowed me to put the glove on the wrong hand, and to also to use my knife to cut in the direction of my fingers.

I was so unnerved by whole episode that I chucked the wood in the bin and vowed to give up carving.
In fact, I'm carefully considering all my activities at the moment and, those which present any danger to me in my old age, are going to get the chop.

The reasons for this are simple. My wife has had two stints in hospital this year for unrelated problems. I won't go into detail, but I was left in no doubt that it is a really place where you don't want to be. I have lost all confidence in the medical profession and therefore I want to avoid doctors and hospitals like the plague.

I'm sure all the doctors and nurses are putting in a great effort, but something just ain't right.

On the bright side I have managed to do another digital painting of a robin and some autumnal leaves.

If you would like to see how I painted it, here is a short video.

If you enjoyed it please subscribe to see another one soon and if you are carving wood, please take care>