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

Nice start on the drum. Poki's legs look like they are getting longer. She's starting to lose the "puppy look".

Buzzy-

Thanks for the coaster shot, bro!

and -

another drum project...F' yeah!!

[ Edited by: TikiG 2010-03-03 09:02 ]

Very nice oh Drum Master... so, is Poki kicking the doo-dah out of Ringo yet? Poor Ringo...

Yesterday's sunset:

Today's sunset:

More rain is coming soon...

I did a little more on the drum. Hollowing it went quick because it was so wide and hollow.Here it is after initial breakthrough:

After a lot of removal and sanding:

Side view:

It's light enough to work on the legs now

On 2010-03-03 20:03, Babalu wrote:
is Poki kicking the doo-dah out of Ringo yet? Poor Ringo...

No...in fact, they're best friends:

On 2010-03-03 09:02, TikiG wrote:
another drum project...F' yeah!!

Hoping for no cracks, or splits...Got some crappy wood in the middle that I scared for.

On 2010-03-03 07:45, GROG wrote:
Poki's legs look like they are getting longer. She's starting to lose the "puppy look".

She's starting to look tough too!

Buzzy Out!

Yesterday's sunset:

We didn't have much rain, just enough to be a disruption and a pain in the ass

The legs on the drum looked a little too big, so my next step was to dechunk them a bit. I also made them taper in slightly from the back to the front. Here are my new guidlines:

It took a bit of time to get it precise, but I worked it all out:

I used an old stanley mesh hand planer to do most of it.

I could tell right away that this thickness worked much better. Good thing too, because I can't put wood back on:

With the legs ready to go, I went back and finished my master and working stencils:

Then, I transferred the image six times, to each side of the leg:

After that, I did a lot of the little adjustments here and there to get it all evened out. I'm still worried about how the leg thickness will be after I do the last cutout...In hope it doesn't fall apart down there.

After this, I carved out the area above thier heads. this will now give me enough room to work on and finish the bell portion of the drum. That will be the first half of my day, and hopefully I'll be able to knock out the tikis this afternoon/evening/night.

It's going to be a cold, windy day out there, but it will still feel like paradise to me!
Buzzy Out!

Buzzy, that's gonna look so damn good when done, but for the life of me, I can't see how those legs will hold together after the final cutouts, given the weak nature of palm.
Fingers AND toes crossed for ya!

Go for it, Buzz!

If it cracks and falls just slather some Elmer's Glue on it.

lookin awsome as usual buzzy!!! gettin close ..... drum roll please !!! hahahaha!!! cheerz buzzy!!

I missed the sunset yesterday. Instead, let me point out the fact that it's officially Buzzy Month:

From the Frankie's Tiki Room Calendar:


They forgot to add the part where Brandie and her friends complain about the chairs being uncomfortable after they sit in them.

Happy Buzzy Month! and...
Make sure you stop by Frankie's Tiki Room the next time you're in Vegas!

Drum progress:

I started by smoothing out the bell part:

then I did more on the inside of it:

Brought it in to carve out the tiki legs:

Here it is now, with the finalleg cutouts done:


They still need some fixin'.

On 2010-03-08 16:04, 4WDtiki wrote:
I can't see how those legs will hold together after the final cutouts, given the weak nature of palm.

I'm pushing far outside the comfort zone on this one... With risk comes rewards, or failure.
I'll take some pictures later to clear up that vision problem of yours. :wink: It's a planned part of the process, and will be adressed next.

On 2010-03-08 16:25, Cammo wrote:
Go for it, Buzz!If it cracks and falls just slather some Elmer's Glue on it.

It seems they make and sell a solution for every problem I encounter. Something will work.

On 2010-03-08 18:24, BIG tiki scott wrote:
..... drum roll please !!! hahahaha!!! cheerz buzzy!!

Not yet, but soon...In the meantime, have a great Buzzy Month!

Back to work,
Buzzy Out!

On 2010-03-09 12:43, Bay Park Buzzy wrote:

Wow Buzzy! That is moist definitely a cool drum design. :o

Buzzy your step by steps are so much help thanks for doing this. For us newbies
just want to say thanks..
3:16

More cool stuffs Buzzy, Thanks for showin'us how!

Today's sunset: pt. 1

Today's sunset: pt. 2

that's just about the last sunset on the water horizon shots for the season. That means spring is just around the corner!

On 2010-03-08 16:04, 4WDtiki wrote:
but for the life of me, I can't see how those legs will hold together after the final cutouts, given the weak nature of palm.

OK, here's how I think I overcame the weakness of the palm in that part

we'll reference the tiki profile on the left for this theory:

Because of the log's composition, I only have to worry about vertical breaks. And, the only vertical breaks I have to worry about, would be those vertical breaks on a plane, caused by an impact or shifting weight on it at that exact spot. The way to lessen the chances of this happening is through designing it initially to be structurally sound and the reinforcement of its weak spots

First step is to work on the overall structural strength. I did this through the original design. The longer the uninterupped section of vertical palm strands that I could leave untouched, the stronger the piece will be. I made sure when I did my stencil that I left an "anchor alley" from the top of the leg through the bottom of the drum. Here it is lined out:

It will only snap to the left or right of that outlined area. The face and back features are all broad enough to not split.

the only place I really have to worry about it breaking now is left of that line:

that can be addressed through a little reinforcement. The reason it's weak there is because the only thing holding the vertical strands together are the natural bonding material in the wood. This stuff will hold, but not that well. I need to add to its natural adhesion. The way I'll do that is with dowels, and as Cammo suggested, elmers glue.

here's how I did it:

1/4" drill bit set to correct depth and a 1/4" dowel

I drill the holes staggered and close to all the way through.

I do it from the back of the legs so they will not be visible

later, I'll glue in the dowels. For now, I just have them all sized and ready to go

My theory is that those dowels will provide extra support from impacts in the direction of the arrow in this picture:

We'll see if it works...If it does, then all those nights at 11:30 pm that I watched New yankee workshop while I was in college actually paid off! Go Aztecs!

On 2010-03-09 13:56, TheBigT wrote:
Wow Buzzy! That is moist definitely a cool drum design. :o

Thanks BigT. I'm on th ehome stretch now...

On 2010-03-09 14:33, tikigodz wrote:
Buzzy your step by steps are so much help thanks for doing this. For us newbies just want to say thanks..

You, and all others, are quite welcome. one day I hope to have my own New Yankee Tiki carving Living room workshop show. "On today's show, we'll be making a drum based on this Marquesan Knifey thingey tourist carving. But first, let's take a minute to talk about shop safety..." That'd be the life. Until then, I'll just pretend and do it like this on TC.

On 2010-03-09 18:30, Benzart wrote:
More cool stuffs Buzzy, Thanks for showin'us how!

You're welcome Benz! You think my dowels will work?

Dog Blog:

Zaya went to Ireland today so I have Ringo for the week. I tell you, that boy just has no respect for the logs:

welcome Ringo! #$$#*(% !!!

Dear GROG, please photoshop one of Kinny's paintings over the log on the Ringo pissing photo. Thank you.

In other news:
In case you didn't know already, it'sBuzzy Month. In honor of Buzzy month, I'll be making a personal appearance at the Tonga Hut Parking Lot Sale, featuring Buzzy later this Buzzy month.

I hope to see you all there!
Buzzy Out!

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2010-03-09 20:16 ]

Your wish is GROG command.

Looking forward to having you and the other San Diego artists at the Tonga Hut Parking Lot Sale, Buzzy!

Today's sunset sequence:


We're supposed to have weather in the 80's next week, or so they say on the news...

Tiki drum update:

I looked at the tikis and thought they needed more depth, so I went ahead and carved them all out deeper last night:

Very challenging carve, it was. The wood was spongy and crumbly in the middle if you didn;t hit it exactly right, and the damn legs kept getting in the way of where my tools needed to be.

Today and tonight I did the grid for the bell, rounded out several features, finshed up a few more details, and did some initial sanding to get rid of the pen lines. here it is now:

I put a line between the eyes and did the rest of the nose for the front of the tiki faces:

when the shadow hits them right, they look a little like bunnies

I still need to do the feet details, and the lower part will pretty much be done

Dog Blog:

I can't tell how the dogs are because they never stop moving:


I did find evidence of blood, lost teeth, and some piles of hair...No trips to the vet yet!

On 2010-03-10 11:48, GROG wrote:

I love it! That Ringo sure knows how to pick em'!

Buzzy Month update: It's still Buzzy Month. And just a reminder: I'll still be making a personal appearance at the Tonga Hut Parking Lot Sale, featuring Buzzy as part of the Buzzy month festivities.

It continues to be a great month! How could it not?
It's Buzzy month, after all...
Buzzy Out!

Amazing engineering study Buzzy, and some people think of you a just beefcake! Gonna be a beautiful drum.

japanese flush cut saws are the best tools to remove the ends of those dowels.

Dam that Ringo.

Here is to Buzzy Month!

Looking fantastic, Buzzy! Trying to picture the final piece- should be stellar~
& that Poki is getting BIG!
Enjoy your month of personal entitlement, man! :lol:

Buzz, how does this get to be your month? Birthday? I thought my wife was the only one who celebrated her whole birth-month (March) We always have opening ceremonies March first and I buy her gifts all month :D

Sunsets:



It stays light forever now! I was out there working until after 7 yesterday. We also have a heat wave today. Welcome Spring Breakers!

I did the markings on the upper part of the drum:

Now it just needs to dry up and not crack and I'll finish it up. I still have the feet to do. Not quite sure what I want to do there yet. On the bell, I didn't do the typical intricate work that I usually do on the drums because I'm trying to do something a little different stylewise on this one. My plan is to leave the head about 1-2" longer than where it's attached to so that the head will dry up and be wavy/shrivled beneath the binding.

After I finished that drum, I got a very nice log ready for another one of those big drums I do.

After I get some artwork sent to me, I'll be spending a few days on that lovely piece of wood...

since I had a couple days before I'd be able start on the new drum, I wanted to cram another quick carving in. I've been wanting to do a cannibal totem for several months now, and have had a log all ready to go for it for months now too. I brought it in the other night and got the log sectioned out so I could start laying the tikis out:

For some reason though, right after this, I just wasn't "feelin' it." So, I didn;t want to force it, and moved on...

to this:

It's a split log that's been sitting in my living room for about 3 years. It's areally nice piece, and totally dry all the way through. I think this is the first totally dry piece of palm I've ever worked on

i'm totally into doing cutouts/throughs right now. There are a few here that are a little more challenging to do.
One step at a time:

Between the legs cutout done:

Over the butt and behind the backs cutout done:

I have to connect those two cutouts next

Butts are apart and the upper cut out done:

next step was to do the profile. I use a 2"flat chisel to do this part

Here it is now, all the hard stuff done:

Now the fun part!

On 2010-03-11 07:48, MadDogMike wrote:
Amazing engineering study Buzzy,

I really just throw it all together randomly without any plan and come up with some legit sounding cover my ass book smart answer, when called out on it.

In honor of...

On 2010-03-11 13:19, GROG wrote:

We have one more hour of light so that are days are that much longer and more productive!

On 2010-03-11 13:38, pdrake wrote:
japanese flush cut saws are the best tools to remove the ends of those dowels.

I got one of them. I already sized them when I cut them. They're just sitting in there until the legs dry a bit and i can glue them in. I left the ends out a bit because the holes will shrink and I have to use pliers to get them out.

On 2010-03-11 18:18, seeksurf wrote:
Dam that Ringo. Here is to Buzzy Month!

at least he didn't waste a good log...

On 2010-03-12 09:52, Tiki Joe's Pop wrote:
Enjoy your month of personal entitlement, man! :lol:

I'm living every moment of it like it's my very last.

On 2010-03-12 18:20, MadDogMike wrote:
Buzz, how does this get to be your month?

It just does. I don't make the rules, i just use them to maximize my personal wealth and fame.

And now, for everyone's new favorite House of Buzz feature,

The Dog Blog,

featuring Poki, Ringo, and special guest Baron:

My cousin came over for a couple days and brought his giant doberman over to play. He's the big and dark one:

Poki and he had a lot of fun play fighting:

Poki really has a lot of heart and really hung in there againstbthe big guy. She'd steal whatever he was playing with and make him run her down to get it back

Ringo just stood in the background non stop barking all day while they wrestled :

that Ringo is a noisy one.

here, Poki practices some dog jiu jitsu by fighting from her guard:

Things have settled down a bit since those wild times...

Buzzy Out!

I almost forgot:

Buzzy Month update: We all have an extra hour of daylight each day so that we may all spend the extra time enjoying Buzzy Month or Buzzy related festivities. One such celebration and gathering in honor of Buzzy Month is theTonga Hut Parking Lot Sale, featuring Buzzy. Spend your extra time and money there!

Cool new dude you have. Looks like you are waiting to do the final finishing on a whole bunch of these dudes at once? I am in the same mode right now, except I have only two unfinished carves. :oops:

this thing is a thing of beauty just like this...nice lines!
hope to see this at Tonga!

and good wood working tips on this one...

i usually wait till the thing busts off before i do that dowel trick....

"and good wood working tips on this one..."

Um, Alvin, uh... I really hate to point this out, you getting all crazy sometimes about basic Grade 6 grammar and the sometimes lack thereof, but "woodworking" is one word, not two.

He was talking about Buzzy's tips on his sex therapy sight (for men with large endowments) about working with a larger than average erection, so wood working was actually correct. Apparently Cammo not qualified as a "member", and you aren't on that website, so you didn't realize what Crazy Al (or "Mr. Sequoia" as he's known on the other sight) was actually referring to.

i'd like an explanation....

it appears to be mounted or stretched as a canvas
but it's a drawing in reality...

you guys are mean....

hey Buz? is it dove tail joint? dovetail joint? or dovetailjoint, or just glassonion?? glad i did not concern myself about it the last was fitting one of those precise little buggers together.

dude! you been busting out a lot, or allot, of great stuff!! you and Kinny get the gold stars!!

I'll go back to English class and sharpen my pencil with my penknife the way my grandfather taught me........

"I'll go back to English class and sharpen my pencil with my penknife the way my grandfather taught me..."

See? Hope Springs Eternal.

Yesterday's sunset:

Sunny and warmer today...

Tiki update:

It took me many drafts, many revisions, amd a lot of time, but I finally got the faces drawn out:

About half way through the third draft of it, I saw the face between the faces and redid it to emphasize it a bit more. I hope it isn;t too obvious and distracting

I just started carving it here:

A lttle more:

faces mostly finished, and the bodies drawn out:

I can't focus on the right face:

On 2010-03-15 18:29, TheBigT wrote:
Cool new dude you have. Looks like you are waiting to do the final finishing on a whole bunch of these dudes at once?

I've been doing it that for a long time. I do all the sanding at once because that way,I save a lot in time and hassle, and a little in material costs. I get my garage all cleaned up and ready and go sanding crazy for a few days. then I have 6 pieces sanded and only have to spend one session cleaning up after all that. then I also save time in staining and finishing them all at the same time. Instead of spending three days finishing one piece, I finish 5-8 pieces in those same three days. I can also use the same brushes for the stains and sealers, so I don;t use as many of those either, thus saving me money. Another reason is that also like to let the palm dry a bit before I do the fional sealing. A month or two of sitting seems to do the trick. I've had a few a left for 6 months or more before sanding and finishing them.

On 2010-03-16 00:25, crazy al wrote:

this thing is a thing of beauty just like this...nice lines!
hope to see this at Tonga!

thanks Al. I'm sure you'll see me lugging that thing around soon enough. How about you see it at Ben's Garage Sale instead? That's a little more reasonable, timewise. Im not into rushing or exerting myself right now. I'm trying to take some time and smell the roses on this path I'm on.

On 2010-03-16 18:29, Cammo wrote:
I really hate to point this out, you getting all crazy sometimes about basic Grade 6 grammar and the sometimes lack thereof,

Cammo the Grammar Slammer! I'm glad you volunteered to clean up TC, grammar wise. As part of your new found duties, we have a 911 TC grammar situation that needs your immediate attention!
Click here to help
Thanks Cammo! Now I'll know what these people really mean when they type a bunch of letters and spaces in a row in their posts.

On 2010-03-16 18:50, GROG wrote:
He was talking about Buzzy's tips on his sex therapy sight (for men with large endowments) about working with a larger than average erection, so wood working was actually correct. Apparently Cammo not qualified as a "member", and you aren't on that website, so you didn't realize what Crazy Al (or "Mr. Sequoia" as he's known on the other sight) was actually referring to.

GROG's right. I do have a large penis. And my own month...

On 2010-03-16 18:58, little lost tiki wrote:
it appears to be mounted or stretched as a canvas
but it's a drawing in reality...

What have you got against dogs anyway?
Like Ringo cares what it is! They all look the same to him.

Ringo asks: Isn't one of your "drawings" just one of your "paintings" on a cheaper piece of paper? Ringo also believes you use the same set of magic markers on all your stuff regardless of what you call it, right? And anway, this is about RINGO the Dog, not you, Kinny.

GROG did a great job on that photo and his work should be commended.

See GROG's work here.

On 2010-03-16 23:30, crazy al wrote:
I'll go back to English class and sharpen my pencil with my penknife the way my grandfather taught me........

If that don't work so good, maybe you should use a pen knife instead? :wink:

It's still Buzzy Month! You can feel it in the air.
Buzzy Out!

smell the roses!! save the back and joints and sanity!

those graphic shapes are awesome to work with... I did an old two-face last spring/summer...
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=20250&forum=7&start=135
Did you see those similar Shag mugs last summer?? they came out great too....
Tongaroa or fisherman's tiki from Rora Tonga/Cook islands also lend themselves to this interlocking continuous line of design.
Typical me, I drew one up back in my very early carving days and never carved it. I do admire your work ethic! I have that piece buried somewhere... i should dig it out and have you carve it for me... have you ever carved yucca!???

Buzzy!!!!
Wow, so much to catch up on. Finally got a new computer. I see your cranking 'em out again. Super cute pup. Spring is here and I'm ready to get some carving done. Hope to see you soon and meet the little one.
Johnny B.

Hey BUZZY, got a match?

FIRE?!!

Me like the double head chair, not buzzy month.

oh boy oh boy oh boy, only 4 more days until i roll into the house of poki, er, buzz. buzzy, you should make a whole bunch of drums like this, except alot bigger, for the tonga hut sale. since it's my idea, we can split the profits. see ya soon, braddah!

Some sunsets:

I took it easy for a couple days because I had a strange twinge in my shoulder. I did manage to mostly finish this guy during that time:

I went for more cuved details than the squared type ones

Poki update:

Poki's been real tired because we've been going on some few mile long walks lately:

On 2010-03-18 11:59, crazy al wrote:

those graphic shapes are awesome to work with... I did an old two-face last spring/summer...

That was a nice piece you did. i wish I would have planned doing it that way earlier on in the process...

On 2010-03-22 21:00, jab tiki wrote:
Spring is here and I'm ready to get some carving done. Hope to see you soon and meet the little one.
Johnny B.

Johnny did end up stopping by a couple days ago:

On 2010-03-23 09:56, Cammo wrote:
Hey BUZZY, got a match?

yeah, I got a match, your face and my ass! Now that's a real match!
(That match joke is #2 all time after the That's what she said one)
Cammo came over the other day after I bought about 5000 matchbooks and was elbow deep looking at them all.

On 2010-03-24 17:18, TravelingJones wrote:
FIRE?!!

No, the guy who collected the matches smoked, and he used damn near every single match in all the thousands of books he had.

On 2010-03-24 20:28, seeksurf wrote:
Me like the double head chair, not buzzy month.

Buzzy Month rules! just wait until Buzzy Year starts!

On 2010-03-24 23:36, kingstiedye wrote:
oh boy oh boy oh boy, only 4 more days until i roll into the house of poki,

Crap, I better start cleaning up all poki's mess over here!

Buzzy Out!

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2010-03-26 20:07 ]

Buzzy !! I was waondering were you been
Love the details!!
By the way I need some tutorials on some chiars? Any links?

*"No, the guy who collected the matches smoked, and he used damn near every single match in all the thousands of books he had." *

Buzzy really should do a post on these matches.

Buzz got a giant truckload of matches from the guy's daughter. Included were matches from what looked like EVERY wild & swingin' hangout from Pasadena to Potsdam. This guy had a thing for Playboy Clubs, Tiki Bars and Vegas, baby, and this was his giant matchbook collection detailing his entire history as a national-level travelling salesman for Dow Chemical. It's scary.

It's scary cause he USED ALMOST EVERY MATCH to light up cigarettes. They're all gone. (Actually some are left and they're really cool) Buzzy and I tried to count how many matches were in an average book, then figure how many occupied a 4" cube, then multiply by 8 then by 3 to get a cubic foot, and by the box dimensions, then by how many boxes were in the daughter's truck, then double the result for a conservative estimate of how many cigs this guy COULD have smoked, but the numbers started going way past 1,000,000,000,000 so we gave up and played with Poki instead. Benson & Hedges should build a statue dedicated to this guy.

Buzz even has a little bag of stir sticks, unsmoked cigars, a Free Drink Poker Chip and a key to the Sahara Hotel from 1965 that he found - all in the bottom of the box. Pure Gold.

nice lovely stuff buzzy. still love the sunsets. nice to see the shoulder is back in order. are you sure poki is tired? it looks more like poki is auditioning for a calender spread. keep the chips flying.

bd

Awesome. Poki looks....

missed you last week...

Sorry.

what's your cell # ?

p.m. me..

A couple sunsets

Tiki season kicked off last weekend at the Tonga Hut Parking Lot sale featuring Kingstiedye's mugs and the Hula Girls with Hiphiphula at the bar. Here's my vending spot:

Kingstyedie sets up his Sloppy Seconds Booth:

Next door neighbor, the esteemed sculptor Bowana:

The Tiki Magazine signing and Buzzy Month Meet and Greet part of the event:

For more pictures of the event click here.

After the sale, Bullet came down and stayed a few days. He got the standard three day House of Buzz visitor's package. Highlights of his stay included: a trip to a closed store in OB to buy some hide for some finished drums I have; a visit to the Freaky Boutiki Gallery at the Freak Factory in Mission Beach; a visit to the Center of the Universe, Babalu's Clay jams studio, featuring a guest apearance by local home tiki bar builder Matt Reese; a little decor shopping for the new tiki room; a survey of quality local eating establishments; evening Seaworld fireworks shows; and of course, lots of quality time playing with Poki:

I told Poki to be on her best behavior while he was here. However, she stole his slipper and hid it under the couch, and she stole a cigarette from behind his ear and chewed that up too. Despite those small incidents of petty theft and destruction of property, they remain good friends:

Bullet brought down a bunch of his books so I got out my camera and got a poor man's version of his Maori library. I got a bunch of pictures like these:




Thanks Bullet, and if that wasn't enough...

Bullet gave me a couple mugs as gifts. He didn't think I had enough in my collection.
I got the Elvis and TikiG mugs now!:

thanks Bullet! We all had fun while you were here. Come back anytime!

Now for the small
Tiki update:

Finished shot of this Moai:

I started the next big conga sized drum. I got the initial hole all the way through while Bullet was here:

It needs to dry a little and I need to get a mug for reference for it before I do any more. most of the crappy part of it is done now.

I used the"gopher log"for this one. Now the finished piece will have a cool back story too. After I squared the end of the log, there was a little left of it that the gopher hollowed out left at the end of the log. I just extended his hole all the way through. So legally, the gopher gets credit for helping with this piece.

Wildlife Rescue Update

Today, Poki and I were on a walk, and we found a new friend sitting in the gutter. At first, I thought it was a toy. Then it moved...It's not like Florida here, where these things are all over and you just run them over with your car when they're on the road. This guy was someone's pet, and obviously lost, so me and Poki cut our walk short and brought our new friend "Boxsi" home:

Found: One Box turtle. Corner S. Morena Blvd and Baker St. Please contact Buzzy if you lost this turtle:

On 2010-03-29 21:17, RevBambooBen wrote:

missed you last week...

Sorry.

You guys almost lost me forever. this bear was tracking me the whole time I was there:

I was afraid to get out of the car. Now he knows my scent and I'm afraid to go back! There's like hundreds of bears out there...

On 2010-03-26 22:21, big daddy wrote:
are you sure poki is tired? it looks more like poki is auditioning for a calender spread.

Outtake?:

On 2010-03-26 21:55, Cammo wrote:
Buzzy really should do a post on these matches.

Poki will eventually eat all the matchbooks as she finds them lying around. Here she is about to take out my Disneyland collection:

On 2010-03-26 20:19, tikigodz wrote:
By the way I need some tutorials on some chiars? Any links?

Let me check on that. It's been hectic here since before the sale. I have one roughed out in the yard I'll take a couple shots of tomorrow or so...

I'll try to have some tiki stuff to post next time.
Buzzy Out!

On 2010-03-26 20:05, Bay Park Buzzy wrote:

SUPER cool. Also, cool how you discovered the hidden face in there along the way.

It took me many drafts, many revisions, amd a lot of time, but I finally got the faces drawn out

That's exactly what happened to me last weekend. Spent Sat and Sun afternoon drawing the face on a new tiki. This even after planning it out on graph paper first. Sheesh...

That last image is brilliantly designed and well executed. OUTSTANDING!

Recent Sunsets:

When I carved the last drum, I had a bunch of waste pieces that I took out from between the legs. It was nice wood, but in real small strips. I milled them to usable shapes and have started carving some little pieces out of them.
Here's the pile of stock

And here's what I get them to before I start to carve

I clean them up on a table mounted belt sander

I got my job carving at the hotel again this summer, so this year I think I'll actually make some stuff so that I'll have something to sell when I'm down there. Last year, I was so busy with commissions that I really had no time to make anything to sell there. So this year, I'm going to try and have some stock.

I've been carving these quick little guys from the palm scraps This is some damn hard carving! Definitaly not the basswood experience. It is kind of fun becuse of the challenges of these small pieces, but it kind of sucks because there is only so much that you can do detail wise before the wood crumbles away

These guys are about 6" tall and barely sanded

These guys are about 4" tall


I haven't decided whether they are pendants, staues, or a combo of the two yet...
They each take about 35 minutes to an hour to carve.

On 2010-04-02 09:42, TheBigT wrote:
That's exactly what happened to me last weekend. Spent Sat and Sun afternoon drawing the face on a new tiki. This even after planning it out on graph paper first. Sheesh...

Measure twice, cut once... OR is it draw it out twenty times, and then cut once.... I'm sure there's a a good ol' days saying that's appropriate for this part of the tiki making process.
I guess your tiki will only be as good as you draw it up, so that's probably important to spend a lot of time on it. It's easier to fix a pecil line than a 2" deep gash!

On 2010-04-05 10:50, amate wrote:
That last image is brilliantly designed and well executed. OUTSTANDING!

Thanks Amate! It was all luck on this one!

I'm also still doing the crappy part of a new drum today. Just squaring the ends and gridding it out for now. No pictures because it justb looks like a log with pencil marks on it.

Buzzy Out!

WOW BUZZ Great idea for scrap pieces!

Looking Great!!

Today's sunset:

Since winter's officially over, I got the factory carving area set up for a summer of use today:

On 2010-03-26 20:19, tikigodz wrote:

By the way I need some tutorials on some chiars? Any links?

Here's a quick run through of the roughing out part:

Chair Tutorial #1

I take as wide and nice a log as I can find. They need to be dry too, because you dont want crappy, cracked furniture from a wet log drying too fast.
You need as much ass space as possible. I try for at least 12-13 inches. 15-16 is ideal, but that starts to be a big log. I find that I can get more ass depth by inverting the log(That's what she said!):

This also allows for the back to actually lean back, as opposed to leaning foreward. this is crucial for comfort.

I want it to be 38" tall in the end, but I also want some error room because the chainsaw isn't exactly a precise tool with the blind cuts we'll have to make later on. I leave 2" extra on it. The plan is to have one extra inch on top, and one on bottom to fix any misscuts while making the seat part.

I cut the seat level 2" above where i want it to be. This way, if i do the seat cuts perfectly the first time, all I have to do is cut two inches off the bottom of the log and all the rough cuts are correct. If the saw wanders while making the seat, I can move the seat level down a max of two inches to remove the mistake.

the first two cuts are just a right angle:

This is hard because you have to make the two cuts meet and you cant see how close you are. It's real easy to make a mistake here. That's why we leave extra material on it...

Now we'll do the back of the seat. It can be left just a right angle, but that's not comfy. Next step is to round it out

the black line is the original 90degree cut. first cut was the red one in the center. Next cuts were the two red angle cuts.

The final back rest should be an arc like the final red line in there. You do this with chainsaws, chisels, and grinders.

Then after all that, all you have left to do is the carving...

It looks easier than it is!
Buzzy Out!