Post #377548 by harro on Thu, May 1, 2008 8:31 PM

Gracias mis amigos!!!

I am happy to say that the Ku head is safe and sound in his new home in Clarita's little bamboo hideaway and is quickly making friends with her mischievous little candles. The Argentinian tiki with an Australian dad, based on a Hawaiian idol, will have plenty to talk about with the globe travelling Hoku Ili's, who even have their own adventure comic strip (see Clarita's thread).

Thanks tikifreak, yep I wiped the stain off with a paper towel after I applied it - all 4 times!

Clarita, I'm glad you like him, it was a pleasure making it for you!

Thanks Benella, I think she is!!

Yes Tama its in the heart, and in the head a lot lately, seems its all I can think about so I gotta do with whatz I got, and be thankful that I at least have the space and time to learn this whole tiki thing at all!

Thanks Bowie, of course size matters!! Thats why my next one is muuuuch bigger!!

Thanks Conga, yes its Argentinean through and through. I have a question for you below....

Greentikipat, thanks. Yes its quite easy to get tipsy down here with 1 litre bottles of beer for 70 cents and great wines starting from a couple of dollars. And then a Mai tai at an "expensive" bar is about $5 or $6.... man its going to be a shock when I move to London in a month!

Thanks Hodadhank, hows your shop going?

Paipo, thanks for the nice words. Yes the markings in the wood came out nicely.

Robin, good to see you around here again. I really like chisel marks too, and its something I want to work on in my future carvings....

Which brings me to my final Argentinian tiki (well for now)... I only have just over a month left here in Buenos Aires before we pack up and move to London for a year. So I am tackling the most adventurous and difficult tiki I've ever attempted so far, and on a deadline too - am I crazy??

Well I have to give it a shot, since I lugged this big log from the side of road in a big bag a few months back, it would be rude not to at least sink a few chisel marks into it. I have no idea what type of wood it is, but many streets are lined with this type of tree so I will try to take a pic of it to see if anyone recognises it. Its beautiful to carve, except for a few knots and splinter-y areas.

A BIG difference, and A FIRST for me on this tiki so far is that I have ONLY used chisels - no power tools at all. I touched it with the grinder to start with, but it instantly didn't feel right, yet the chisels did. So I listened to that, and ploughed on with just 2 chisels, a flat and a gouge.

The other reason is that these woodchips are a lot easier to clean up than a mountain of sawdust in every orifice and a layer of dust throughout the apartment:

Roughing out the shape with the big gouge:

We shall call him LEGOHEAD for now:

Progress up to tonight. Smoothed out the rough face with the flat chisel (all the tools used so far are shown in this picture), ready for marking out:

LOOOOOOng way to go yet...

Anyone pick where the inspiration came from? I tried searching here for bongo/drum tikis but only found a few - Marcus did a couple of excellent ones. Conga, surely you've done one?

Whew, long post. Time to rest now.