Post #463092 by TikiMango on Fri, Jun 19, 2009 4:10 PM

I looked at scroll saws yesterday, I think one might be in my future soon. That should help to reduce the smell associated with the bone carving since I'll be able to reduce my time spent on the bench grinder. Priced one at Harbor Freight for $70 and a Skill brand saw at Lowe's for $115 (on sale now 15% off that). I think I'd rather have the brand name one for a few dollars more.

Two more pieces completed today.

I used a 1-3/4" hole saw for this. I would have liked to have seen 2 whole inches, but I just didn't have the area available on the bone I had. This is a take on the Manaia figure, but just the hand, the three fingers symbolize Birth, Life and Death while the outer circle is the Circle of Life.

I finally got the hook overlapping the leg as I had originally envisioned. Took enough tries, but now I know that when I pick angle to cut, go even steeper because that isn't steep enough. The different planes of this make it a useless hook, but I think adds some subtle visual interest.

Speaking of bone, I have found that there only seems to be two different suppliers at the pet stores (at least here in FL), Red Barn and Just Bones. Having used both, I would recommend Just Bones over the Red Barn brand. The Red Barn bones seem to be very porous and have this dusty white coating all over them. So by the time you sand down through all the honeycombed bone, you only have a very thin piece to work with (if anything). The Just Bones usually have a thicker wall, less honeycombing and just seem to be a better quality overall.