Post #735324 by nicework on Fri, Jan 16, 2015 6:00 AM

Great stuff. I see that most your work is in wood. What Kind is it. Well I just started this tiki journey,You have been a great help, We are each otheres eyes and ears,You asked me why I paint my tikis. I had mentioned to you why I paint them because of the influence I have had here in Orlando. But looking at your pictures It hit me why other carvers paint the TIKI. I have only been carving palm.
Washiontonian and Sabal . What i have noticed in the past 15 carvings is that when i debark the palm it is dicolored, black gray green and red stains on them and they do not look that good, But What i noticed from looking at your pictures that wood is a solid nice natural grain with no discolorations. I do at times find a palm thats clean, I get alot of my palms from a privite land fill, Showing my gratitude to the owner I have givin him a few carvings and he told me I can have Cypress free for the taking, I still have about 30 palms in my garage, I am holding back on the Cypress I feel like it would be best to buy a gas stihl 150 . I use a stihl 140 electric and some times its not powerful enough for dried up palms, some times i get some palms and they carve like butter. Aloha station decribes it as carving apples and he hit that one on the nail thats what it cuts like. But thank You aloha for posting pics and sharing the Passion, Have a Exciting day.

As you can see the top of the palms are discolored that runs through the palm when cutting I think thats why other carvers painted the tikis to hide the discolorations I have even seen tikis painted a wood color it did not make since but it making a little more since to me now. Practice makes progress