Buzzy's work: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate

Beautiful.. Nothing beats a left coast sunset.

Why does that first pic make me think of atom bomb tests?

I hope Santa was good to ya!

Damn nice Buzzy!

Nice sunsets, too. Thanks

On 2006-12-26 11:16, tikigap wrote:
Damn nice Buzzy!

Nice sunsets, too. Thanks

Thanks tikigap. Here's a sunset for you

On 2006-12-26 02:43, Tornhalo wrote:
Why does that first pic make me think of atom bomb tests?
I hope Santa was good to ya!

Tornhalo: check out tonght's atom bombesque sunset moments:


BOOM! Hydrogen to helium...My rods and cones hurt.

Santa was too kind! Lots of good tools to come...

Buzzy Out!

I made a big mess today:

It started with these two ficus pieces I just got from the tree service. They picked out a couple of pieces with twisted and irregular grain patterns for me. Thanks guys.

AS was right about it sometimes growing over itself. Here's an example of a hidden dead spot I came across in one part of the first log. It was sealed and full of a soil like compost.

It also had a hidden surprise about four inches into it:

This wire ran through several inches of the log. I had to trim good pieces here and there where I could to avoid it. It was dead center in the best part of the log without the dead spots. I got six quality pieces out of half of one log so far, despite the damn wire.

I also cleaned up the piece of juniper

That's a fine lookin' piece of log

My final results after an afternoon of milling:

I feel like carving one of these logs tonight...

but first, a ham sandwich!

Sawmill Buzzy Out!

nice little guys and nice future tikis :)

Now you just gotta bust the tikis outta the logs :)

I see James Brown !!!

Keep up the insane work Ringo!!

Thanks tikigap. Here's a sunset for you

Aw thanks man! That's really a perfect shot. I can almost smell it. Sweet.

Some day I'll show you my view - I can see the Washington Monument (waaaaaay the f*&k off in the distance), but I can see it - about 5 miles away. But never in the sunset.

Spent my day down at Jack Murphy Field at Qualcomm Stadium to set up a whale watching party in the ACE Parking parking lot for the Pacific Life/Vons San Diego Holiday Bowl. The highlight of the day was watching all the porta potties skid around the parking lot in the wind, along with all the trashcans. Go Cal!(Are they in it?)

Todays last bit o' sun...


Three tikis blew over today...

Buzzy

I managed to get 13 decent pieces of ficus from one of those two stumps I just got. The grain on these is all over the place

That night, the moon set over PB

I wanted to test one of the pieces, so I started carving this

then the sun went down.

The next day I sanded it a little

Buzzy Out!

I saw this messed up tiki the other day. My friend and I were talking about why it was so wrong. We came to the conclusion that the maker of the particular tiki oversanded it. That is a problem: too much sanding.
Sanded:

I gave him a "Coco Joe's lean", inspired by a few posts on the collecting thread. If I make enough of these, then all you guys will not have to put your tikis in the oven, because eventually it will be branded in your heads that small tikis need to lean forward like this:

One of the undocumented effects of global warming is that it makes coco joes tikis lean. Turn off your ovens, please!!! You will only make it worse for the rest of us.

Buzzy Out!

Stained:

Buzzy Out!

Buzzy this tiki looks like he has an attitude. Almost like he is saying don't @%&# with me. It looks great.

The stain give him a nice look. The veins of the wood are beautiful.

Benjamin.

I wanted this guy to shine:

Last sunset of '06

Here's to '07.

Buzzy Out!

Lookit that Awesome Ficus Grain going everywhere. Not great to carve but Spectacular to look at. Well Sanded and Not Over sanded.
Excellent tilis, Excellent SunSets and Excellent FUN.

That ficus really finishes nice. The interesting thing about it is that you can't see the grain all that great till you put stain on it. Keep em coming.

Is Ficus from Grmany?

On 2007-01-01 21:23, RevBambooBen wrote:
Is Ficus from Germany?

I almost want to answer this question...

I was watching the marathon of BarrettJackson yesterday, getting real excited about this year's event, when I started carving another piece of ficus.
I've been trying to retain the original shape of the block of wood through the carving, so here is my "Cubey Ku", just started:

I feel like doing some big stuff now...

I warmed up today by hacking into the corner piece for the perpetual tiki fence project that I'm working on.

Then I worked on the Cubey Ku

way earlier tonight:

Moments ago:

It's my first day back to work after vacation, so even though it's late, I'll still stain this guy. Probably only take an hour anyway.

Buzzy Out!

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2007-01-03 01:00 ]

On 2007-01-01 17:57, AlohaStation wrote:
The interesting thing about it is that you can't see the grain all that great till you put stain on it.

AlohaStation: It's like magic, isn't it? I love it when the stain get wiped off and the pattern of the grain emerges. I always give it a "Whoa!" when I see it. This one turned out pretty cool too:

If I cannot sleep tonight, I'm going to contemplate a hand rubbed finish or a shiny brushed on poly finish while I lay there. Right now I'm leaning towards the shiny finish like the last one. I wonder how I'll feel in a sleep deprived state tomorrow...

Buzzy Out!

Bay Park, you are becoming quite a Pro with that Hook knife of yours and you have the sanding down Pat too. I'm happy you found this ficus stump to turn into tikis, it's truely magical watching the transformation. It's So Magical, you forgot at least 2 whole dayz of SunSets, been raining out there or sumpthin?
Nice work, Bad memory. :)

Yeah that ficus looks like nice stuff. I have a ficus in my office about 3 inches 'round at the base. In about 20 years I might get a piece that big at the rate I'm going!

Those guys are coming up nicely - the stain and grain are really nice!

Like the Cubey Ku but he seems somewhat creepy to me, kinda like something from Killer Clowns from Outer Space.

Here he is all shined up:

On 2007-01-03 05:35, Benzart wrote:
Bay Park, you are becoming quite a Pro with that Hook knife of yours and you have the sanding down Pat too. I'm happy you found this ficus stump to turn into tikis, it's truely magical watching the transformation. It's So Magical, you forgot at least 2 whole dayz of SunSets, been raining out there or sumpthin?
Nice work, Bad memory. :)

Ben: This piece had this BITE to it; I could barely run the blade through it. It seemed to stick no matter which way I tried to cut the grain with the hookknife. I used my smallest flexcut googes as palm gouges because it was too dangerous to try the small knife. It would lock and slip too unpredictably. I used the hook knife to do the finer shaping and detailing towards the end. I also used the dremel instead of the hookknife for the headress lines, because the hookknife just wasn't liking this piece of wood when I tried that too. This stump is great, I have one more that looks even better, and a four foot log of it. Lots of ficus in my future. As for the sunsets, last thing I remember was listening to the afternoon radio during a short break....ZZZZZZZZZ

On 2007-01-03 10:39, tikigap wrote:
Yeah that ficus looks like nice stuff. I have a ficus in my office about 3 inches 'round at the base. In about 20 years I might get a piece that big at the rate I'm going!
Those guys are coming up nicely - the stain and grain are really nice!

This piece measures 5"h x 3.25" w x 3.25"d. Just a couple more years to go on yours...
Make a pendant! I heard there are about 7 types of ficus around here, and i'm not sure what type this is. It is different from the first type of ficus I carved. But the grain is still as good as the first piece. I'd recommend trying a piece if one comes available, outside the office, that is.

On 2007-01-03 11:19, Surf tiki wrote:
Like the Cubey Ku but he seems somewhat creepy to me, kinda like something from Killer Clowns from Outer Space.

Oh no! You said the c-word! Now Zaya will not sit in the same room as this piece...
It does have a peculiar look to it. Haven't thought of the Dickies in a long time. It does kinda remind me of those clowns.

Buzzy out!

Nice ficus work there buzzy, I'd like to see ya try some ironwood! Made a few pipes long ago, a real pain to shape but the end result looks awesome....

Yo Stiki! Some dude from washington came over today to fix my stove. Small World.
Big Sky:

Buzzy Out!

Rain is on the way. Crappy day, but it's good to be outside. Currently working on the corner piece of my fence. I want it to be big, bold and simple. this one is about 6'9"

The head scar came with the log. I'll try to work around it later.

It has the added challenge of working around the 90 degree slice I put into it to accomodate the fence corner joint.

Buzzy Out!

Oh Yeah, that ficus? Remember it was all rooty and Tangled, a Sure fire sign that the grain will be Nasty, Tight, unpredictable and Beautiful!
Nice sunset!

The sun set behind the clouds...

and then they just rolled in. :( here comes the storm

This guy's going to have to learn to like the rain...

I look at pictures of my work and then go fix what I see that is wrong.

I cannot decide whether I want to sand or carve tonight...

Buzzy Out!

Those little wood guys are sweet :) grain looks tops

Thank you, Hewey.

Last night I did a little carving...

and some more sanding.

Today: More of the same.

Buzzy Out!

Buzzy yer killing me with the whole kids in line for mugs, almost fell off the chair laughing!

Stiki: Glad you like part of the "Master Plan"
Sunset:

Work:

Buzzy Out!

Little guy done with a very simple design. I kept the shape of the original piece of wood for this one too. That is why it has the slant. It looks more like an elf or a garden gnome than a tiki though. The grain should come out pretty good when I stain it. That will save it. No one will even notice the dumb carving, just the cool wood.


This picture was taken before I did another 25 minutes of sanding on it.

To Stain I go: Buzzy Out!

Wow Buzzy, the grain on the ficus is just incredible. I love what you're doing with them. I really like the squat guy, it looks like you had a good plan for which side of the grain to put on the front and it worked out perfect. When you work with the palm gouges, how are you holding the piece? Do you use your normal log stand, or do you have a vice, or are you just sitting on the floor? I tried doing a little with a palm chisel, and I seemed to need another hand. :)

Here are the last three ficus pieces:

I used a reduced red mahog stain and covered it with amber shellac to make it slightly different in tone than the others

Mieko: I am actually using my regular mallet tools as palm tools, on the floor, with no stand or support. This last one was easier to carve with the hook knife, so about 85% of it was done with that tool. I have a whole mess of tools on order though...

Buzzy Out!

Sunset

Looks like yesterday, but only a little bit later in the day.
Summer is on the way!!!

Buzzy did I tell you that you carvings have elevated from good, great, wow to just fantastic. They really are at this point.

Hey man great stuff. your right that stain does work wonders with that wood, it looks awsome. that big guy is looking good too. each time i see it its looking better. no im not currently working on anything at the moment but im trying to get a good chunk of wood of some people in town here but the real problem is that they are on vacation! cant wait for more.
i really like that "gnome" looking guy you got there.
later

More nice stuff BayBuzzy, I really love the Pointy head dude. That grain is good as the rest and you tickled the finish a bit somehow, the end result is very good. ditto what Hiltiki said about your carvings getting better all but the "Fantastic" part Maybe in another20 days or 100 carvings which ever comes first, but you are on the Fast track for sure. However your sunsets, now They are getting FanTasTIC.
Break's Over, back to play for ya'

I don't know Benz, I thought it was fantastic considering not much background in art and only a year and a half or less into carving....

California dreamin' - the sunsets and chops are really nice!

It just keeps looking the same day after day...

My sunset art is in a rut.

If I don't get some clouds or something soon, I'm bound to lose some of my sunset fans.

It's like a roller coaster, this ride.

Hiltiki: It's a little trash talkin' left over from some PM stuff earlier, Benz and me...
It's motivation: He tries to piss me off, knowing I'll labor long and hard into the night trying to up my level of work to finally shut him up. In apparently, 100 carvings or so...(which is a lower number than I'm personally projecting, so I'm actually complemented by this)

Benz: Thanks buddy! You made my day. Only 100 more to go...
I "played" with that finish a bit on that one. I kind of glossed over a couple steps earlier, but i'll elaborate now a little more, since I'm out of pretty pictures for the day. First thing I did was stain it with sedona red for about half the recommended time, and wiped it off by hand, leaving the lighter grains redder than with just a reduced red mahogany stain. It didn't look as good on the darker grains though, so I tried to bring them up with a reduced red mahog, which I once again wiped off the lighter grains immediately with a cloth. I then touched up the the darker grains as needed with a brush and more stain 4-5 times, dabbing off the excess to keep the lighter grains reddish. The result turned out pretty good for just winging it like I did. I'll probably reverse the stains' order next time, and try a clear, instead of an amber tinted shellac, just to see what if. As for getting back to play, I sold two tikis today, unexpectedly. Thinking about that flexcut recip motor carving thingymajiggy. Maybe one for each hand. Same game, new toys...

Tikigap: I need to start doing some trick photography if this cloud drought continues...

Mother Nature:I continually strive for excellence, in all aspects of my art! Bring me some some clouds, please !!!(But rain only at night)

Dear LA: Can you guys give your cars a couple extra revs of the engine before you shut your cars down? I need some smog down here for good sunsets.

Buzzy Out!

:)

I was so happy to see the mailman at my door with a box in his hand, I almost kissed him on the mouth.



It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

When the mailman grabbed my face and pushed me away, I pointed to the porch ceiling and said, "Oh, the mistletoe must have fallen down."
Then I grabbed the box out of his hand and got back on with my life.

Boxopening Buzzy Out!

Whoa nice flexi's, ya can send me the old ones for my b-day!

Wooooo, so pretty!!
If you're coming on the 20th, I'd love to see them in action - by then you'll know which ones are your favorites so I can think about some new tools. :)