Post #225829 by Bay Park Buzzy on Sun, Apr 9, 2006 10:46 AM

Hiltiki: I don't carve fast in my opinion, however, once I start a piece it's hard to walk away from it. I'll spend 6-7 hours carving in a day and quit around sunset. Usually what happens though is that I drag the piece inside and work on it in my living room until I pass out. There have been a couple of times where I worked a few 12-15 hour days in a row. For some reason I have this overwhelming compulsion to finish a project by working non-stop once it is started. Some times needing sleep is annoying but working all night sure has cured my insomnia.
Benzart: I'm not really a tool guy, more like a drafting guy. I think the most important thing for myself in designing a piece is the actual drawing itself. If I get the line drawn exactly where I need to cut, I make no mistakes so far as placement once I start carving. I figure why fix something later when you can do it right the first time. I kind of chuckled when you asked about being a tool guy. If you saw my tools you'd know I'm definitely not a tool guy- all I used for about my first 20 were Four flat chisels-$19.99 at Home depot, a mallet, and my pencil(most important.) I did look at one of your old posts about tools and just went out and bought a set of gouges: my first real carving investment. I wish I would have them months ago.
I took four years of mechanical and architectural drafting in high school( real hands on drafting, not CAD)so I can use the tools of that trade quite well-now its just a matter of trying to master another set of them. I'll post some pictures of the drawing layouts on the logs later on.

I've been posting all my Tikis chronologically and am now up to #10. After #10 I really started taking a lot more pictures of the process so brace yourselves, I have a ton of stuff to share with you goes. Don't abandon me now, it's just starting to get good...