Post #185728 by Basement Kahuna on Fri, Sep 9, 2005 11:09 PM

I'm there, man...(thanking all that need to be thanked!!) Alright...here are some photos of the progress...A couple of shots of what I'm doing...Basically, I'm doing guide cuts and then angling in on them. The cuts on a Marquesan are mostly 90 degrees. I sink a duckbill chisel (something I made, just by grinding a flat chisel down to a 16th of an inch in a duckbill taper shape so it can sink very deep into a log) in 1 inch and a half (marking the depth on the chisel with a magic marker) and then cut the wood at an angle into it. There are a couple here of cutting Marquesan teeth as well...I have another specialized tool strictly for carving Marquesans I improvised called my "Chopper Popper" . What it is is basically a spatulate shaped chisel with a round tip that I ground down on a bench grinder. It fits the contour of a deep gouge that I use to do the teeth on all of my Marquesans..Just start the tooth line with trusty gouge and a rubber mallet (I want to be sort of gentle when carving these so I don't have too much wood taken out should I want to change the pitch of the tooth a wee bit). Once I am to the lip line, I just "pop" the tooth out with the improvised tool. Works kinda nice. Now it's time to start the sleepy eyes!!