Drunken Viking- Unfinished

One Horn Too Many I think...

This little fellow has had one too many horns of ale. He is inspired by a bunch of great guys from Peel on the Isle of Man who I met in 2005 on a viking longboat racing weekend in Killeyleagh, Northern Ireland. 

Often I will start a piece and spend the next few months picking it up and putting it down again. Unless I'm carving for a particular occasion/person/gift I find that it is the act of carving that I love more than the production of the end result. This guy has been in my pocket for about three months, he occasionally swaps with a sketch of a mouse that I've also had on the go for ages.

He is probably going to take a back seat now as I'm just starting work on a little gift for a friend. I won't say what it is yet as she might read this blog and we would rather it be a surprise when she gets it.

It is however in a timber that I haven't carved before and in fact don't even know the species, I inherited it from my Dad.

When I do get to finish this chap I am thinking perhaps of using pyrography to burn in some of his features such as beard and decoration on his shield, that sort of thing. He might even get sent off to the Isle of Man, who knows...

Nearly forgot to mention he is carved in Ash which is from the tree in our back garden and is largely still fairly green. He stands a little over 2 inches tall. I won't be putting too much more detail into him as the timber really doesn't like much fussy stuff but I think I will smooth him down quite a lot before giving him a couple of layers of Danish Oil.

Corian Heart

This is the carving I've just started.

The material is Corian which is a solid acrylic which is often used for worktops etc.. This is going to be a pendant cut directly from the squared off block of material. The area of the heart on the left will be simply removed so there will be a hole all the way through. The right hand section will be a rounded form carved from the square block.

You can't see from this photo but this piece of Corian has some delightful white speckles.

I’m really looking forward to carving in this new material but I also want to try some proper bone and am looking for a local supplier of Beef shin bones that I can use.

A Little Slab of Sharp

I want to introduce you to a carving in metal this time,a real working “work in progress”.

My current favourite knife for small carvings is this one. It is a really simple double grind Kiridashi “carved” from an old file. I didn’t heat treat it at all and so it is just as hard as it was when it was actually a file. The sharp edge is only just over an inch long and is razor sharp (as are all of my knives, including the cooking ones). I want it to be a simple flat grind with no secondary bevel so that re-honing is as simple as laying it flat on a stone and polishing. I don’t think that will work in practice though so I may end up with an absolutely tiny little micro-bevel, just enough to mean I can hone it without taking off half a ton of metal each time.

Anyway, this little slab of steel is a real joy to use, small it may be but it sits really well in my hand and just “feels right” if you know what I mean. I’ve still got quite a bit of work to do on getting the two bevels as flat as I possibly can with the tools I have to hand but things are coming along nicely.

In the meantime it sits quite nicely in it’s soft leather sheath in my pocket. It is the only knife I carry now and has a smaller blade than almost any pocket knife I can think of. It is well under the 3 inch limit for folding knives that we Brits seem so fond of referring to.  What most people forget in this country is that should an incident occur or the police need to detain anybody then almost anything from a key to a nail file could be deemed to be an offensive weapon. This is a fixed blade and so I need to have a really good reason to carry it. I’m hoping that the fact that it usually shares my pocket with a small bit of wood or other material that I’m carving will be enough to satisfy the law. The interesting thing is that I could carry a folding knife with a blade of up to three inches long without needing to explain why, unless of course I was involved in a fracas.

For now though I enjoy the feel of this little sharp thing and am really loving how it carves…

  

Another one that I have played with but feel a little less in love with is this.

Again a simple double bevelled flat grind and the sharp on this one is less than an inch. I’m quite proud of the simplicity and the finish but it has it’s issues in use.

The handle section feels good to hold but I think I should have tapered down towards the edge in a graceful curve rather than the sharp notch that is there. The blade has a tendency to turn in the hand because there is a long distance between the shank and the edge. 

Spoon in Ash

Hi,

I'm sure I've mentioned this spoon before but since I've now managed to take the time to photograph it I thought I'd mention it here.

I started with a small chunk of Ash newly cut from the tree in our garden and split it down the middle. I've carved spoons before but not really looked at how the shape should turn out so I wanted to try and make this one really work. It is an eating spoon so it needs to be small enough to fit in someone's mouth and the right shape to shovel food in.

It wasn't until I had carved most of it out that I realised what lovely grain this piece of wood has, I'd never really considered Ash to be as beautiful as this and would certainly look to use more of my firewood for carvings in the future. 

I even went to the trouble of sanding t down with progressively finer grits of abrasive.

Anyway, here it is.

Tagua nut Pendant

Latest Project: A Tagua Nut Pendant

I've just finished this little piece which I'm quite pleased with, not with the photography I hasten to add, my phone does not have the best camera in the world.

For those of you who don't know, Tagua nuts are about 2 inches in diameter but are very irregularly shaped and it is not always easy to get a decent sized piece of nut to carve. They also often have a soft pithy hole in the centre which makes for any kind of uniformity difficult to come by.

Anyway, this piece is a fusion of Maori design and my own thoughts. It signifies the coming together of two figures, (I'd like to think of them as being male and female but that's only because my own preferences are in that direction) to form one heart. The Maori part is that the overall shape is known as a Pikora or twist and signifies eternity. So basically the overall idea behind the piece is two people coming together in love for all eternity, (slushy or what).

Once the pendant is hanging around someones neck and is held and fiddled with it will absorb the natural oils from their skin and will darken in colour and gain a patina all of it's own. The Maori believe that as the carver works on a piece it absorbs some of his creative essence and later, when it is then worn, it becomes part of the wearer by taking on their spiritual essence.

This isn't the first time that I've carved Tagua nut and certainly won't be the last but I have just acquired some small samples of Corian (fake stone made of a kind of really hardwearing plastic) and I'll be trying that out for carving next. From what I've seen it's possible to create some lovely things with it.

The two photos below show the pendant which is a little more than one inch or 25mm high. The first photo is of it the right way up and the second shows the hole for the thong which is in the top of the larger of the two figures. 

Addendum: better photos added 04/08/2014

Better photos of this pendant