Harro - What the hells been happening?? pg 13

I'm with those guys, Nice one Harro but you Gotta quit playing around and get down to it! This guy is Dying to be uncovered and you are doing such a great job but he grows Impatient! :lol:

Harro,

This drummer is really neat. I really like the flattened head and the jawline. This piece is on track to be a real looker. Please post more progress shots when you are able.

-G$

thanks Benella, Bowana, seeksurf, Robin, Ben, and Gman - appreciate you guys stoppin' in and helping me out...

battling against the clock now as we have to move out of our apartment in 2 days... urghhh, and then moving overseas in one week today... and now the freakin' cold has swooped in like a rapidly advancing glacier (such a thing?). In other words its freezing out (1 deg C / 32 F), so I took advantage of the now near empty living room and moved the entire workshop (read: one portable workbench) inside near the toasty heater.

I tried to do what Bowana makes it out to be so easy and have a contrast of smooth drum and facial features, contrasted against a rough, chiseled body (kinda like mine :lol: haha, stoppit). But i've got a bit of work to do to be able to get the chiseled finish looking half decent. Of course a newbie can always blame his tools, or lack of, and the poor wood. So yes i will do that. :)

Here it is with carving finished (sorry bad pic):

THEN I started the stain last night and it all went downhill!! Firstly I got pretty high staining inside in a tightly closed apartment and then didnt open a window until this morning, haha. It would have been ok with one coat of stain, but I stupidly went ahead and did another on the body and it was just too much. Too much bright RED cedar stain. Good for a Santa tiki, but Mieko's already done one of those. So it's a bit of a mess at the moment, but with a bit of guidance from Ben maybe I can save it. Unfortunately don't have time to sand it right back as I probably should do.

I dont have a camera now so I cant post pics of the poor fella but I will keep you guys up to date, and something will happen soon as I have no choice!!!

The detail on the drum is really nice, it looks like rope around the
head. Overall excellent job on a tiki that I studied a lot and decided
that I wasn't good enough to do it. Happy travelling.

DAMN that's nice!

This sucker turned out GREAT! That face and the drum
so NICE.

Yes, the staining process tell me about it.. I still
dread it.

I am watching this too! Very cool! I like the style very much! TT---------------

Thanks Conga - yes that was the intention, to create rope around the top - thats what they have don't they? I'm sure you can do a much better job of a drummer tiki than I can if you give it a go.

Cheers duddy, seek and TT. Well I got my camera back so took some pics of the BAD stain job. Bloody bloody red...

While I did intentionally want the drum to be a bit lighter, the difference is just TOO much. And I can't explain the difference between the head and the body...

It was a really BAD decision to give the body a 2nd coat of stain. As Ben taught me, the rougher wood really soaks it up.

I'm happy with the color of the drum, but the body is WAY too red. So to reduce this ugly red a bit, I have to decide whether to sand the whole body back smooth (lots of work), or buy another stain color and see what would happen if I stained over the top of the red on the body.

Any suggestions???

Harro ,
how about if you wiped the red stain on the body with thinners before it
dries totally . And then , on a test piece , duplicate the red , wipe it off after a short time , and then test stain with brown , or blue , or green , or yellow , or whatever colour is needed with the red , to make the brown you want .

Jock

Harro "chizzel-chest" drum beater,

I think he looks great. Set him aside, I think the color will grow on you. Don't make any crazy decisions of change right yet. Let the fumes clear. Give him another evaluation in a few weeks or months and then decide if you need to modify the color.

I agree..I did one PUKE GREEN once and pretty much just decided to move on..there are MANY more tikis to do and one crazy RED one is A-OK

Love your work Harro...

Looks good to me. Has some great contrasts already and the drum looks great! The difference is color: In my wood working I have found that if I use a different grit of sand paper in one spot then another the spot where I used the coarser grit will absorb more stain. This also happens when I don't sand a piece evenly with the same grit. This can work to an advantage by using different grit in the areas that you want a different contrast. Just a thought.

[ Edited by: Tikilizard 2008-05-30 09:30 ]

[ Edited by: Tikilizard 2008-05-31 11:10 ]

oh! Is not that red... I think you could leave it like that... But if you want to turn it a bit brown, you can use "Betun de judea" (en pasta), you can buy it in any "libreria artistica", is a mix of wax and stain, you apply it and with some fabric and "aguarass/ thinner" you take it out, is like a Brown "patina", that you can graduate to the saturation you like....
Sorry I don't know how to say any of this right in English...

Harro, I think it turned out cool too! Maybe try some WATCO rejuvinating oil on it. I know when I apply it to mine it take some of the stain off (well it's on my cloth anyways). Maybe it will lighten it up a bit, yours still looks fine though!

Craig

No matter what you do with the colors You are
always going to have a kick ass carve with this sucker.

harro looks awsome its good to experiment keep up the good work my friend

The red doesn't look too bad. The carving is what its all about, bro.

Jock above is right on the moolah, try to dunk it in mineral spirits, or just wipe it with a well-soaked rag. Then experiment with colors on another piece.

I've been going REALLY dark with stains these days, we have a color called "Red Mahogany" thats perfect for this, and the last Tiki I did used "Ebony" which is a super-deep charcoal black. You can stain it, then sand off sections lightly to bring them out or give it an aged look.

Keep going - this one is worth it.

First, it IS an EXCELLENT Carving, all it needs is a finish and that's half done already. My vote is with the side that suggests addi9ng another color to create the desired color, AFTER you let it DRY. There are a few ways to hurry the drying but mostly it has to be in a warm atmosphere so Send him here and I'll evaluate it, dry it and get back to you one of these days. :lol: :lol: One thing you may want to do is stain another piece of wood this red and experiment on That until you get the color you are looking for.
Seriously just keep up the good work and keep taking pictures so we can see how he comes out. Thanks

Wow thanks EVERYONE for the suggestions and support. Gotta love TC.

I took a few days away from it and didn't think about it too much. When I returned to it I decided to keep it as is and give it a gloss finish. Also the new owner saw it and loved the red and also said it would match their interior. That and the fact that I had moved house and am leaving for London tomorrow all contributed to the "just get it done and finished already" approach. :)

Final pics:

So big thanks to you Benzart, Cammo, Marcus, seeks, freaks, Clarita, tikilizard, tiki garden, bb moondog, Totoaiaha, and Gman... - couldn't have done it without ya!!

Very cool Harro. The colour look a lot better with that gloss finish and your two-tone effect makes the brighter red appear a deliberate decision and not out of place. The new owner likes it, so stop worrying! The eyes are cool too, they remind me of giant cowrie shells (sorry if this has been mentioned before).

Respect for the professionalism getting it done in time for overseas travel too!

Looking forward to your next project..

Harro,

That looks perfect! Nice pics! I'm glad you finished him up and that the new owner likes the color. I do too. Sweet stuff. When you get settled we'll expect more great stuffs from you!

-G

I don't wanna work, I just wanna bang on me drum all day---very nice! Cool vintage vibe going on with that peice.

On 2008-06-04 14:55, harro wrote:
Also the new owner saw it and loved the red "and also said it would match their interior."

I love when stuff like that happens. Something doesn't turn out the way you wanted it to, and it ends up being just what someone else was looking for!

Harro, this guy has a great look. To quote GMAN from an earlier post, "I really like the flattened head and the jawline." I agree totally.

Very cool Harro!
Nice personality on that guy!
And the red turned out nice
and the new owners love it...
what could be more perfect?
have a safe trip!

This guy turned out fantastic Great Job!

Cool stuff Harro, you nailed it and it just looks great. Very impressed
with this one!

Nice one, Harro! Looks like all it needed was the clear top coat to make it all better!

Congrats on finishing on time. Have a safe trip!

Glad to see things worked out there Harro .
' crisis ? what crisis '. eh .... :)

and a lesson there for the rest of us huh ,
Thanks

Red, blue, purple yellow.... all I see is a really nice Marquesan inspired carving!

Nice work Harro, one to be proud of, and one that must have been tough to part with.

Looking forward to your next creation!

Harro, the finish Really brings out his beauty, Man what a Nice carving and the Color is excellent

I'm totally into seeing the artist's hand behind the work - so thanks for not sanding out all the awesome toolmarks. That chiseled texture gives the piece so much life!
Great job!

Turned out really sweet! Great job. Happy travels.

speechless, perfect work and beautiful pix as well. The owner is a lucky one!

Benjamin.

Aloha Harro!
What a very COOL carving, so much life as if to be really playing some sweet music for us all! Excellent job my friend , and good luck in london and looking forward to whats next from you, Aloha Mooney

Thanks everyone for the nice comments, this is the first chance I've had to log in to TC since leaving BA...Wow :)

Last night I had a scorpion bowl for the first time at Trader Vics in Marbella, SPAin!! Looking forward to more in the other tiki bars in England.

Cheers Mooney, benella, Tikilizard, Swankymonkey, Ben, Lake, Toata, Bowana, Conga, seeks, LLT, 4WD, Howland, GMAn, and Tama - really appreciate you guys stopping by and helping out.

Better get back to the beach!!! :)

Aloha TC,

Been a while since I checked in here, and boy have I missed a lot! There's so much awesome art happening here its going to take me a while to catch up...

Well now I'm settled here in ol' London town and have been drinking in many tiki bars, but still have some more to investigate and conquer. I was lucky when I arrived to take a dream job working with cheekytiki building the UK's latest tiki bar - see the pics here.

although I havent been doing any tiki carving yet, I did carve an engagement ring which I gave to my now fiancee, its made from a small piece of Argentinean wood that I brought over. Lucky it fits and she said yes!

Hopefully I can start some british tiki carving soon...

Congrats man! :D And welcome back, good to see you again

Harro, back from the dead! Whoa, the Kukui is looking very, very cool!

Congrats on that, and the engagement. How could she have said no with a ring like that?! :)

Bowie

Oh wow! The bar it's looking amazing! super fancy i like it, great job!
And the ring it's so cute, you two are so cute! Congrats and big hugs! I miss you guys, come back soon!!