Post #240438 by Bay Park Buzzy on Thu, Jun 29, 2006 10:12 PM

Tiki #26
When I brought the last load of logs to my house, my back was sore and I cut all the pieces before I loaded them into my truck. Most were between 2- 3 1/2 feet tall because that was all I could lift. The corollary of this was that my next set of carvings would be short ones. After doing the chairs and about 10 small scale quicker ones in a row, I was dying to tear into some tall logs again. I must have been automatically stuck in two foot tiki mode when I decided to do my first "tall" one in a while though, because I ended up doing a stack of two short Marq inspired guys. Oh well, at least the log is taller. This one was done with another mexican fan palm, planed to perfection with my trusty ryobi planer(have I mentioned how fast this tool is yet?) the guy on the bottom is holding a Maori in his hand. the explanation is that he got it from his cousin a couple of islands over.
I tried the picture drawing technique on this one. I took a picture of each part of the log...

...then I printed them on to a piece of paper and drew out what I wanted each half to look like. This was something that I was messing around with at the time. I had marks on the drawings that corresponded with visible marks on the log to make the transfer of the images in scale easier and quicker.

drawn

ready to carve

Some day (real soon, actually, upon reflection) I will have a nice set of gouges. I did my time and paid my dues with the flat chisels. C'mon Uncle Sam, send me that refund!

If I had gouges, I could make all those fancy details that people make when they carve Marqs.

Sunset.

Next day, bottom guy

couple hours later

closer, almost done

All done but the ears

I let it sit to dry for some time. A couple of weeks later, I got all the money back that uncle sam took from me the year before from my paychecks over what he should of had taken. I immediately went out and bought a flexcut 6 piece starter set. Instant gratification. I tussled with the idea of redoing most of the details with the new tools. I decided that since it had been a few weeks since I had carved this piece, I should let it reflect my skills and tools at the time. I could realistically get caught in an endless circle of constantly refining the same pieces over and over. I moved on. There were a few embellishments that I was going to do when I sanded, so I did those unfinished areas with the new tools.
Stained it with rosewood stain and a couple layers of clear shellac




What I learned:

1. All those smooth scoops are a piece of cake with the right tools.
2. The right tools are expensive in comparison with the wrong tools.
3. There is no comparison in the quality of output of a nice tool and a cheap tool.
4. Tax refunds last less time than paychecks do.
5. Hey, you can't put a Maori on a Marquesan!
6. Hey, I can put a Maori on a Marquesan!
7. Water based stains are not as nice as oil based.