Post #126650 by Aaron's Akua on Sat, Nov 20, 2004 10:08 PM

Polynesiac, I never got into woodworking until recently. In fact, I haven't done any art since my High School days until about 2 years ago. Guess I just didn't have time for hobbies. But TC got me started again, and now I'm pumped!

JT, that's some major tiki action you got goin' there. Hopefully my back yard will look like that some day. I see your Leroy right there in the middle. Hope mine looks half as good when I'm done!

Kanaka, this one's going to be made from a mexican fan palm log. I thought I'd try a different method of removing the bark this time - 4-1/2" angle grinder! Started out well, but made a big friggin' mess. I think I might've dusted out my neighbor's jacuzzi in the process...

Cleaned up the ends with a chainsaw at my pal Rattlesnake Jake's house. That's where it's at for now. Hope to get started laying down some outline cuts over an extended Thanksgiving weekend vacation. This is me playing "Leroy" with the chainsaw.

I've been daydreaming about big logs all day. Here's Rattlesnake Jake slicing up some tasty Ficus logs for me. One's 7 ft, the other's 5 ft. Sprayed the fresh cuts with Polyurethane to seal them up & stashed 'em under the porch for now. More on these guy's later. I've got a few other projects planned first.

Rattlesnake Jake's got the carving bug bad. I've got a sneaky feeling that you might be hearing him in the near future...

Kbgator, the sketches are all in 2-D. The tracing is all Plines, and the sketch is all arcs. Arcs are great for this type of thing, cause you can turn on the "grips" & tweak 'em any way you want. I've got neither the time nor patience for 3-D. Keep in mind that the only reason for this sketch is to transfer a photo of Leroy's design to a pattern on a round log. Even the most rudimentary sketch on a log can be turned to magic with a chisel. You just work it as you go. Take a look at the sketch below. The trick is to take a tracing of a photo (Leroy's awesome tiki from the BOT) and translate it into an accurate repoduction on a smaller scale log.

I owe a favor to my friend Randy. Repayment will be in the form of this tiki carving. I gave him my copy of the BOT, and this is the carving that he picked. I really love this tiki... It just seems to leap off the page. So, to keep it on the "up & up", I asked permission from both Sven and Leroy. Here's their responses.

**From Sven: "Please, go ahead, I see the whole Book of Tiki as a blueprint for the Tiki revival."

From Leroy via Bob van Oosting: "Aloha Aaron. I talked to LeRoy this morning and he said it's fine with him. It's available for all to copy---enjoy! Bob."
**
So, with Sven and Leroy's approval, I got started. I scanned in a copy of the photo from the BOT. Then I scaled it down to the size of my log (tracing on the left).

Using CAD, I figured out the circumference of the area where the outline will appear on the log. I made a grid to that exact size (on the right). The end result will be a paper template that I can wrap around the log & lay down my tiki outlines for chiseling.

Orthographic projection normally uses 45 degree lines to project lines from a flat side view to a flat front view, keeping everything nice and proportional.

To compensate for the fact that the side view was a round surface, I used an ellipse rather than a 45 degree line to project the lines.

I created half a tiki face with this technique. Then I just mirrored the half to make a complete sketch. That's another great thing about CAD. You can work on half of your design, mirror it, and everything is exact.

Leroy's carving looks like it was made from a large palm trunk that was cut & turned upside down.

I want to make a scaled down version of the carving, and I want to keep it as close to the original as possible. That means I'll nead to trim my palm log down accordingly to match. This just might be my excuse to buy that Arbortech grinder blade that I've been eyeballing for awhile (apparently one of the favorite tools for TC's own Cheekytiki and Lake Surfer).

I'm also going to have to tweak that sketch to accomodate the larger diameter on top and smaller diameter on the bottom.

I suppose I could just eyeball it & sketch some lines on a log, but that would just be too easy, now wouldn't it? I have to say, copying is not easy. It would be ten times easier to just do an original design. This is a real challenge though, and bound to be fun.

Hope to post more after the holiday weekend. Until then....

Cheers!

Aaron

"Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness."
-Pablo Picasso

[ Edited by: Aaron's Akua on 2005-01-14 14:44 ]