Bowana's Other Crafts

Here is Lil' Punk with two coats of Minwax Golden Oak stain, and Krylon Matte Finish spray acrylic over it. Now all I need now is a fork to stick in him because he's done!

I started this fellow at the last Chop. Musubi Mom turned us on to her secret recipe concrete mix that contains vermiculite and another ingredient that escapes me for the moment. I think it was Eye of Newt or something like that. Anyways, you pour the concoction into a cup and let it set for a few hours. When it starts setting it's still soft enough that it can be carved (but use old chisels because they will get dull). In a few days the magic concrete brew will set up hard, but in the meantime it can be carved. This piece (that still remains nameless) is about 6" tall. I worked on it for about an hour. It's the first time I spent less than a day to finish a carving, which is a complete miracle!

Tikis and plants like each other, so if you have some plants, put your Tikis with them and let them go nuts! :) Thanks for visiting!

...The drums!...The drums!...

[ Edited by: Bowana 2008-02-25 20:33 ]

[ Edited by: bowana 2008-02-26 08:49 ]

He's gorgeous, Dave. I can't believe he's finally done. He was starting to threaten Oki Doki's reign as Chop mascot.

Bowana - LOVE that finishing coat, and the spray-on looks swell. My fave part of this sculpture is the leetle teeny teeth; he looks like a punchy ex-boxer on holiday.

I vote he's the new mascot, of 2008!

(I'm building Oki Doki a surfboard table top to hold onto. This doesn't mean he's a mascot, just that he still isn't finished. The board will have a hand-carved glassed on fin, fake decals, etc.)

Another masterpiece.

Dave, are you sure that L'il Punk is done? You might have missed a couple of spots! :wink: Just teasing! He turned out amazing, and I love the oak finish. You'll have to bring him to the next chop so we can check him out all finished, and for old times sake.

Zaya

That Punk kick ass! Nice job and he is
growth stimulator at that!

So great! It took a loooong time but what an amazing carving he is! and he was finished before you continue the Hoku Story an all, Bowana you are a total gentleman! and a great great carver :wink: !

Bowana,

Sorry to chime in late, my puter is down, but man-oh-man....that is a wikkid piece. I'm glad you finally drew the line and called him done. He looks awesome! Congrats!

Sweet work, keep it up :D

Awesome bowie!!!!

love the finish on him, top stuff!!!

how's the next one going??

Thanks for visiting, Kate, Cam, GROG, Zaya, seeksurf, Clarita, GMAN, hewey, harro!

Kate and Cam: I don't know if Lil' Punk is ready for the responsibility of taking Oki Doki's place as mascot yet. Those are some mighty big shoes to fill!

GROG: Maybe Ill get to take Lil' Punk on a road trip too!

Zaya: Oh you are right! I did miss a couple of spots! :)

seeksurf: Yeah, man! Tiki growth stimulator! Tikis love to hang around with plants.

Clarita: Yes, he took a loooong time. If I wasn't so busy hijacking your thread, he would have been done a long time ago. Thanks for putting your foot down and making me finish it before I finished the Hoku saga. Yes, a gentleman am I! :D Thanks!

GMAN: Yeah, it's hard to keep up with all the great threads on TC. I was thinking the same about yours, that I got there late, because you have started on a second carving since I last checked.

hewey: Thanks man, I'm going to finish up my hebel/AAC Moai now.

harro: How's the next one going, you ask? I'm dying to start another, but I decided that this year I was going to finish everything I started last year. I sure would like to try piece of that quebracho. It looks tough, but I think yours came out great!

Buuuuummmmp!!!

Sir Bowana came over to play last night....Dude, you really need to make a mug!

[ Edited by: Babalu 2008-03-25 06:32 ]

Babalu, if I was aware that you were armed with a camera I would have lost the granny glasses real quick! You've got the skills to become a Photography Ninja! Thanks for the post.

I put some stain on this guy, Ali'i The Second...

...and now he looks like this!

I used Minwax Golden Oak Stain, with Man 'O' War Spar "satin" varnish on top. I say "satin" because it was actually very glossy, which I didn't like, so I ended up spraying Krylon Matte Finish over it to dull it down.

I hope these angles are good enough to get you started on yours, Buzzy. If not, let me know.

So, another carving from last year got finished, but this does not in any way take away my title as TC's Slowest Carver! :)

Nice tikis but If you check how long I've been carving on the Bony/curly lono, I may have you beat in Slooowwwwww...

Nice work Bowana. We don't see a lot of that one.

Very nice... like right out of a musuem of natural history nice!

Wonderful finish.

nice one Grandpa!! :lol:

whats next on the hitlist of '07? I vaguely recall a guitar body somewhere in your pile - whats doing with that?

oh Ali'i The Second is great!! he looks so bad!
And i totally second what Babalu says, Bowana mug asap, yay!!

awesome job on Ali'i II! as was just said,-you don't see him much. you did an extra-fine job on his feature compasition. and the chiseled finish is nice and even. and thanks for making me feel alright with my long finish times!;)

Benz and Greentikipat, let's start our own club and call it something like Slow Tiki Carver's of America (STCA). Hmmm...nice acronym.

Thanks, Conga and Lake Surfer. Yeah, this is one of my fav images from Hawaii to replicate.

Gracias, Clarita! Hmm... a mug, eh? Sure! Porque no? But first I have to finish the hitlist from '07, so it might be a while. :)

Harro, yes you did indeed see a guitar body on the pile. I've been doing some work on it. A guitarist friend of mine had the idea to build one and wanted me to design a island design sort of body. I decided to first build a model and see how it looked before I ruined an expensive guitar.

It's based on a Fender Telecaster. The body is cut out from a high density press wood called HD something. It's great stuff to work with. It can be easily shaped and sanded to a fairly high polish. At this point it's got a few coats of white primer on it. I used a woodburner (courtesy or Zaya) to make the patterns. .

The neck is also the HD Something wood. The pickguard is sheet styrene. The fretboard is a thin slice of hardwood.

The overall length is 20".

This will give an idea of the size.

...and at the same time honors GMAN! :P

On 2008-03-30 21:29, Bowana wrote:
The body is cut out from a high density press wood called HD something.

I believe that's MDF. :wink:

WOW, now you're shaping/carving a guitar ! Very good. Good choice too, the telecaster is a Legend !

Benjamin.

thanks Bowie. Being a guitar player i am particularly interested in this project. But I was shocked when I got to the last pic to discover that its just a wee willy mini guitar and not full sized - I was fooled to begin with!!

4Wheeler- I think MDF is Medium Density, and HDF is High Density. Don't know what the F is though.

Benella- Thanks! The Telecaster body shape also has more space to draw on than some of the others.

Harro- Haha! Gotcha! Hope you had enough space in your suitcase to bring your guitar to BA with you. if not, maybe you need one this size!

I LOVE this!! Is this based on a museum piece or anything?

Slow carvers of America? Yeah, the last one I did (my 3rd only) took like 3 months!

It's like the slow food movement - good things take time you know.
Man, I stopped in here to thank you for hooking Babs up with that clay (Thanks! :) ), and I see I'm way behind in keeping up with your work.

On 2008-01-28 22:15, Bowana wrote:
I found a bit of time here and there to do a some work on Lil' Pumpkin. Mostly on the eyelashes/braids.

This vertebra area has proved to be the most difficult part. Not only does it need to be somewhat symmetrical (X4), but it breaks easily while carving. I have had to retrieve a few pieces from off the floor and glue them back on. DOH!

Thanks for looking. :)

This little guy looks like he could've stepped straight of a 1960s Coco Joe's catalogue. Mindblowing detail! Perfect posture!

And I couldn't find these in this thread:

...so here they are. Still got any of these available? I love the ali'i design, it's kind of a signature piece for you.

The tele is lookin cool. I'm excited to see what you can do with it. That could be marketable! Do a jazzmaster next, and of course, a strat!

Thanks, Big T! Yes, it's based on the Hawaiian feathered Ku Kaili Moku images, like these. I've not seen any carved from wood though.

Thanks Surfintiki, a Mosrite Ventures should be on that list too!

Hey, Paipo! I hope you like the clay. It's actually more of a wax, and it's purrrfect for getting hyper-detail. Yes, I've got some Ali'i pendants available.

Do you have any of these lying around doing nothing?
I'm looking into the crystal ball and seeing a possible swap!

On 2008-04-03 21:47, Bowana wrote:
Thanks, Big T! Yes, it's based on the Hawaiian feathered Ku Kaili Moku images, like these. I've not seen any carved from wood though.

Thanks!! That's a superior interpretation you've made from those pics.

Uh! yes I agree with ThebigT! Great interpretation indeed!
a lot of activity around here lately, nice lil' guitar and shoes :) !

On 2008-04-03 21:47, Bowana wrote:

Thanks Surfintiki, a Mosrite Ventures should be on that list too!

Ahh Bowana, now you're really reeling me in here... I've always loved Mosrites but in Aust they are so rare that you have to be a millionaire to buy one -thats if you were lucky enough to even find one... lucky a buddy in another fellow punk band in my hometown of Brisbane also loved the Ramones and Mosrites (but also couldnt afford one) - so he built one. Then some more for some other friends in other bands. He called them Wosrites and crafted them all by hand and to the finest details. I got one made by him about 8 yrs ago based on the Ventures model exactly as you pictured above - he named it a Wosrite Versatone model - but with a custom 50's style light blue paintjob (damn dont have any pics with me). Its my favourite guitar and is safely in storage back home - some of my other guitars werent so lucky and were sold to fund flights, food and so on!

I didnt bring a guitar with me but i did buy a cheap one here. By the way, my mate is doing really well now, and has a long waiting list and made guitars for some pretty cool bands - check out the custom page at http://www.tymguitars.com.au/index.html. When he made mine he was still working a day job and handcrafting guitars under his house in his spare time. I knew he would eventually make a living out of it as he was talented and had such a passion for it.

Oh Harro...I was just playing one of those!..

They were at.. http://www.gruhn.com/

Big T- Thanks! Glad you like it!
Clarita- Gracias! Te gustas mis zapatas, eh? (you like my shoes, huh?) :)

Right on Harro, and Surfintiki! A couple of Mosrite fans! Congrats to Tym, Harro. Those are excellent guitars he's made. Post a shot of yours if you ever get one. Making guitars is really a challenge. I'm running into a lot of things I had not anticipated, such as getting the neck pocket straight so that the strings will align properly with the bridge. Good thing this is only a small model or else I would have had to have thrown it away already. I can imagine what a task it would be to make the real deal full sized.

Right now I've just got the neck clamped on and need to get it straight before permanently attaching it.

I carved the designs deeper using a very small V shaped linoleum cutter. The red blotches are spot putty to patch where the stupid cutter slipped.

I glued the fretboard onto the neck and shaped the neck with a drum sander and heavy sandpaper glued to a tongue depressor.

Thanks for looking! Maybe you guys already know about Eastwood Guitars http://www.eastwoodguitars.com/ They make very cool retro instruments too.

That is REAL cool. I'm enjoying this. It looks too hard for me, I just like playin' em! Thanks for posting that Eastwood link too, I always wondered what that geetar was, Jack White likes to play.

Bump! Aloha Bowana! You have some real nice stuff happing here. Keep up the nice work, Aloha Mooney

Thanks, Mooney and Surfin! I put the guitar on hold for a while to give the robot side of my brain a break. Lots of calculating and measurements to be done. In the meantime I managed to finish up this guy from way back when:

It's carved from a 24" block of AAC and I finished it off with a coat of Behr Concrete Primer, 2 coats of Behr Semi-transparent Concrete Stain (Terra Cotta), and then put a wash of brown acrylic over that.

Thanks for looking!

Most Bitchin Sir B!!

Wow Dave! The moai looks fantastic.

I fear that your Hurry Up And Finish It Already Corner is getting smaller than mine. :)

Very exact!

Bowana never disappoints!!

Gorgeous finish, Dave! Very aged look!

Very nice they are so clean and exact Nice work of Art.

Very nice really, super neat, love the stain too!

Are you German by any chance?? That is just too precise!!

Firm, sharp and with a stoic look - just like the real moai. Perfect color too.

This piece is amazing.
Great work,

Benjamin.

Wow, I gotta say that is one of the Sweetest Moai I have seen EVER! Man does he look like he just came from Easter Island. WOW!

"STCA" Huh, I Resemble that remark :lol: :lol:, I'm Definitely the leader in That group. Love the Guitar too. What Can't You DO?

myspace

[ Edited by: Benzart 2008-04-25 10:37 ]

Beautiful work, and the stain is a very nice touch too. I've got a big block of limestone (also earmarked for a moai) that looks almost identical to AAC, and had thought of trying some sort of concrete seal/stain process on it.
You may not be prolific but your pieces are well worth the wait!

Aloha Bowana!!!
WoW is right my friend that Moai is Aweasome! How do you carve it so Kleen and tight lines.Aloha, Mooney