Post #237206 by Bay Park Buzzy on Sat, Jun 10, 2006 8:14 PM

Tikis 21-23: My first paying gig

The timeline of my carving development takes us back a few months to the end of January of 2006. I had twenty tikis under my belt and started to get a lot of praise for my efforts amongst my family and friends. The discussions invariably led to "you should...(and then some advice about ebay, web sites, business cards, flyers, swap meets, and Renaissance fairs to sell my growing pile of stuff.)" After one such discussion with my girlfriend, I told her that I just wanted to carve, and not worry about all that business stuff. Besides, to this point, most of my tikis sucked and I had not even sold one yet(without trying-go figure). We then made the agreement that she could do all the selling and business stuff while I would carve at home by myself and not even answer the phone. Just send me a check if she sells anything, minus her cut. My fear was that I would not have anything to sell in the future because I didn't have any time to carve right now because I was too busy trying to sell my stuff all of the time, instead of just carving. It is a viscious circle that would doom any struggling artist trying to eek out a mere pittance in the grand scheme of things. And really, how much can you make just carving tikis in your backyard in your spare time. The monetary return did not seem worth the trouble.Well, bless her heart, Zaya came through the next day or so. She had some work friends that loved tikis and might want to look at my stuff. She made the arrangments for them to come over the next weekend. they came over and seemed to like my stuff. they were shocked that I had only been doing this for a few months. Then they explained their idea. They wanted four chairs to go around an existing table bar in their kitchen. they had certain height dimensions and a couple of pictures of some stools they saw in a store. The stools in the picture had no backs: a feature they wanted in theirs. The backs present a problem in that you need a large tree to begin with, because at least three extra inches of diameter would be utilized for carving on. this meant that I had to find four logs that had a base of at least 16-17 inches in diameter, and not too much more because the chairs would have to be moved, as they will be used frequently.
I only found three logs and had to send out a message that I needed a large one from the tree service real quick.
Meanwhile, I got paid half the money up front. It was damn near the coolest thing that happened in my tiki universe so far. wanting to give my customers the highest quality product for their hard earned dollars, I immediately started sketching out the dimensions for what I would make.
the existing bar was 36" high. they wanted the seat to be 21" high. The chairs had to sit as flush with the bar as possible when pushed in. This was my first visualization of the chair and bar as described by the client(that sounds so profesional)

Here is where I calculated how large a log I would need to fit a person's rump comfortably. Initially I wanted the larger end of the log on top, but that would make the tiki face lean down. this sketch helped me see why I should turn it over

My final sketch was drawn to exact scale. I now noticed that I needed to make the chair back higher to avoid the tiki design looking too stumpy. Zaya called the client and told them we should make them higher to look better. they didn't want ugly furniture, so they let me do whatever I wanted. I raised the height several inches.

This is a scale drawing I used to establish the radius of the chair back. It had to be thick enough to be used as a handle and lever to move the chair around, but not too thick, because I needed as much room for the seat as possible. I measured the diameter of the top of the log, subtracted three inches, and used that new measurement as the radius for the back curve. Here's to high school geometry, drafting, and The New Yankee Workshop!

each person in the family picked their own design for the chair. For one of the designs, I took a picture of the chair after shaping it, printed the picture, and then conceived the design on the series of drawings shown here

Now I had to make them. I used Mexican fan palms and the first two cuts were easy. I hate that sawdust hides the lines I need to cut while using the chainsaw. Because I had to be more precise and couldn't afford to lose a log, I put tape as a marker 1/2" below where I would cut. I just cut parallel to the lines. I did the seat cut first, then the initial back cut. GMAN could do this one handed and have a perfect piece fall out with no saw scars. It took me a few careful cuts and a large cracking sound happened that scared me when I pulled the piece out. Luckily, it cracked in an area that would be removed

Here it is with the piece removed

It took me forever to whittle this concave in with the chainsaw and two inch chisel

The first one took me about 3-4 hours to rough cut. I got a new chainsaw blade and the second one I did in an hour. Third one in 50 minutes, and the last, I cut it down to 45 with better results

Here they all are. One was very fresh and I constantly feared that it would crack at the seat. Every morning I checked it first thing because I had no replacements logs available. It turned out fine

Here are the in progress carving pictures for all three(I had to wait on the forth to make sure it wouldn't crack. I didn't want to spend the time carving something that wouldn't work due to splitting)
#21 Roughed in chalk

pencilled in and ready to go

started

more progress

done

It fit me fine, but I'm medium in the trunk area. I had my large friend come over and test all four. The one that was smallest for him was to be used for the child's chair; the rest were fine, he said.
#22 drawn with grease pencil. This is the one that I originally drew out on the photo

started

more done

Finished

#23 drawn

started

more done

finished

all three before finishing:

I sanded all of them, burned them, and stained them with two different tints of shellac
From this angle, I wanted the chair aspect to be hidden. My goal was to have them look like just tikis when pushed in, and then reveal the hidden funtionality aspect of them when they were pulled out. Most people are surprised when they find that this picture is actually chairs

They all freak out when they see this side

Back, front, side (do the hokey pokey...)

The customers, now my friends, were very pleased when they picked them up. they loaded them in their truck and off they went. I must have felt like parents when their kids go off to college seeing the truck take them down the street and out of sight, only I was kinda bummed. Even though it was great to get money for my craftmanship, it was hard to see my first creations leave my possession. It made me want to make more stuff. Right away. Getting paid for something you do anyway is totally cool. What have I been thinking? I need to carve more-sell more, establish my empire...

Sidebar:
The fresh log I got for #4 had this on it when I went to check it one morning:

This happens frequently with fresh cut logs. the ants really like the red spots, when present.

What I learned:

1. Having a business manager works well. It leaves you free to carve uninterrupted by distractions. Thanks Zaya! A few weeks later she surprised me with a booth at Tiki Oasis. Best move to date.
2. Getting paid rules!
3. Wow, I really needed a new chainsaw blade. So this is how it is supposed to work...
4. All those years of watching New Yankee Workshop paid off
5. I would have made these for their happy reactions alone, but they have UFC's every month now and I have to pay for them somehow...
6. They looked better than I could have ever imagined when I finally saw them in place. I went there a couple weeks ago for lunch and they looked so good I could barely believe that I made them.

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[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-06-10 22:41 ]