Pineapple head

Hello again Tiki Centralites.
Many of you requested that I send more pictures and articles, this made me feel all warm and fuzzy about myself. Therefore, I will be more that happy to keep sending more Creating Tiki articles.

This story is about a type of tiki that I like to call pineapple head. Some time next week I will add some pictures of older pineapple heads, if I can get my co-worker to scan them in for me, so you can see the progression that I have made over the years.

About half a year ago, all of a sudden, I got qute a demand for this certain type of tiki. The first one was adorning my front yard and got stolen (I got it back however), the second is now living at Aloha Grill, and the third one (which I will be talking about today) is proctecting a cool longboarder surf cat's backyard.
When this fellow first contacted me via e-mail he stated that he wanted a tiki and that he was a serious buyer. I was thinking a serious buyer, all right, those are my favorite type. However, when he came by my house to talk shop, I decided to give him a fair deal($800) and not charge a premium($1,500). We went through my photo album, and of course, he chose Mr. Pineapple head. I was thinking great, he chose the one that is the most tedious face tiki of mine to create. Because of all the cuts that this headpiece requires, you have to be very careful not to mess it up while rough cutting it with a chainsaw. Sanding it is no bowl of cherries either.

After a few months, the tiki was finally finished and I went to drop it off at it's newly adopted parents house. FYI, I like to compare my Tikis to Cabbage Patch Kids, each one is different and gets adopted by a family who is supposed to love and cherish it(Even though it might not be true, I like to believe it is). Upon arriving at the gentleman's house I couldn't believe my eyes, he had this killer tropical back yard with a large koy pond and a custom slate sunken in hottub.
He was overjoyed about his tiki. SCTiki Shack's mission statement is to make it's customers so happy that they ooze.

After all business transactions were completed he invited me into his beautiful French Riveria style house. I couldn't believe my eyes, inside his house were around 30 replica surfboards created by the original masters such as Pat Curren, Greg Knoll, etc. Many of these were made out of redwood burls, which aren't cheap. I assume that they probably run around $5,000.00 to $10,000.00 each, quite the expensive hobby. I was told that eventually these boards might be put into a museum for everyone to enjoy.

Enough of my jargon, below is a couple of pictures of the pineapple tiki I have been spewing about. I will add on to this story when I am able to post some other pictures of older ones.

I wish everyone out there who is reading my article a Merry Christmas.
I am going on a trip next week to visit family so I might not be able to reply right away.

Thanks,
Will

SCTikis

Great story, SCT. So you got ripped off too? This kind of thing seems rampant these days.
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=12323&forum=1&30

After reading all of the acounts of tiki theft, I don't think I'd put one in the front yard. So, how'd you get yours back?

I love the pineapple head design, and how the outside layer is tan with deep red on the interior. Is this redwood?

Keep posting these interesting stories.

A-A

SCT, you are Really producing High Quality carvings. Obviously, you are a perfectionist as every line is clean and crisp. Looks like you cut it out with a laser. You and aaronsA should be a perfect match.
Great work.

I especially like the clean hard lines. Great Job

I like the way you handled the nose. It doesn't fight against the nature of the log, yet has plenty of depth.

Aaron's Akua,

I am fortunate to have easy access to a vast supply of redwood. In the winter time hundreds of logs wash up on the beach by my house. However, sometimes these logs have rotton spots and will mess up your carvings. I've had to gorilla glue many tikis to keep pieces from falling off. Fortunately the stuff is so strong that you never have to worry about it again. You can actually mix it with a little sawdust to match the color of your tiki.

About a year ago, one of my best friends purchased 18 acres of raw land in the Santa Cruz mountains. In the process of building an access road several tress had to be cut down. About half of these trees were milled using a portable Lucas Mill. The smaller logs < 1 1/2ft diameter and some special larger pieces I got to keep.

I'm not sure if you ever used redwood or not. I think it is one of the best woods to work with. It's two dimensional characterstic helps add depth to your carvings, it is rather soft, and bugs don't like it. I think they find those tannins are yucky. The only drawbacks are that Redwood only grows in certain areas of the world and can be very expensive to purchase (Which you probably already know). Since these trees are so large,ancient and beautiful I think it is bad JuJu to cut them down solely for monetary purposes. This is why I always get trees that have already fallen and give them a new meaning/life. You wouldn't believe all the resources that I see while I am mountain biking around here the only problem is the access.

I think I hear my little 11 month year old son waking up so I have to go. I will tell you the stolen tiki story shortly when my family permits.

Thanks,
Will

SCTiki,
I look forward to owning one of your Tikis.
Keep it up and Merry Christmas!

SCT-Will,

I've never carved the stuff, but I'd really like to sculpt up a BIG redwood log someday. Unfortunately they're not washing up on my shore. I wouldn't know how to move a big log like that around anyway, without causing permanent back damage. I love the way the deep red wood peeps out from the inside like the warm light from a lantern. Nice stuff.

A-A

Aaron's A,

I told you that I would tell you about my stolen tikis after I get some pictures scanned in. Here it is, the tikis in the image below were stolen from the front of my house around a year ago. One afternoon I went Mt Biking, upon my return I noticed something was not quite right.

(The first Pineapple head)

After I put away my bike, it dawned upon me that my tikis were missing from my front yard. At first I thought that it was a friend playing a prank on me, but soon I wrote this off since I didn't hear from any one.
Instantly, I combed the neighborhood paying special attention to houses I know are rented by UCSC students.After a futile effort, I made a stolen property report with the police. The fuzz informed me that even if my tikis were found, that my chances of recovering them were slim. If the theives claimed that they created the tikis temselves it would be hard to prove.

I was irate since the smaller of the two is my special wedding tiki which I believe brings my mariage good luck. Santa Cruz, even though it has more than 60,000 people, is a tight knit community. I let all my buddies know about the theft and had a good percentage of Santa Cruz residents on the prowl looking for blood.

About six month later, one of my neighbors notified me that he saw a tiki in a house around the block that looked similar to mine. When I saw that it was mine, I wasn't sure how to approach the situation. In front of this house there were several dilapidated trucks with Harley Davidson stikers on them. Even though I am kind of a big guy, I decided that it would be better if I called the cops instead of tackling this task myself.

When the police officer arrived, I was glad to see that he was the most imtimidating seargent that I have ever seen.Around 6 foot five with a shaved head, I wouldn't want him coming at me in a dark alley. We confronted the thieves and he asked them where they got the tikis. He then asked me if there is any way to prove that they are mine. I told him that the wedding tiki has Didi and Will Forever engraved on the back. Sure enough, they handed them over as fast as they could. I guess there was a man named Ortega living in the back house who stole them. He recently moved to Sacremento and was going to pick them up at a later date. Just my luck, the current tennants liked them and brought them from the back yard to the front sun room for all to see.
I guess these tikis wanted to come home.

Below is a picture of my second pineapple tiki which is now living at Aloha Grill.

Merry X-Mass from SCTikis.

[ Edited by: SCTikiShack on 2004-12-21 16:21 ]

Great story Will. I Love happy endings, especially where it concerns stolen tikis. Lucky, lucky, lucky. Nice tikis too.

Will,

I had a similar experience with some tools. It's pretty satisfying tracking down your stuff, then telling the cops where to go to find it. Usually when you get ripped off you know calling the cops won't do you any good. Good for you. Keep up with the good stories.

Merry Xmas,

Aaron

A few well placed molitov cocktals will keep the bikers from coming back.Done annonymosly (sp?) in a most clandestine fashion of course.

I just wanted to post some pictures of a tiki that I made for a repeat customer. This tiki is Redwood and stands around 5ft6in.

Lately, I have been forced to sketch out my tikis beforehand due to the clients wanting a particular product.
The one in the picture below was done freehand. I prefer to carve them out freehand because it is always a sup rise how the tiki comes out. Kind of like a box of chocolates, you never know what you gonna get.

The back of this tiki looks a little Northwest Indian style to me with the bird-like figure at the bottom.

This tiki is now living with Mr. Pineapple head who has become quite gray in his old age.

Here is a picture of the happy tiki owner with his newly adopted idol in his beautiful, tropical style backyard.

Thanks for reading my post,
Will
sctikis