swizzle....bought some chisels, and has started carving(Ku progress + another page 3)

OK i've finally started. Yesterday I bought a couple of chisels and started my first carving. It's about the size of a Tiki mug. I'm not sure what sort of wood it is but it carved very nicely. I'm just concerned it's not completely dry in the centre, so i'm hoping it won't crack.

Here's the chisels. They are only small to suit the size of wood i'm using. I need to find a good size log and then i'll buy some larger ones.

The wood with the design drawn on.

And here's where I got up to last night. There's not too much more wood I want to take off, so when i've finished that i'll get the Dremel out and do some sanding to clean it up and maybe add some detail. I'm very happy with it so far and i'll post some more pics as I go.

[ Edited by: swizzle 2010-07-03 23:54 ]

You should be happy with it. Nice job!

Right on! good design and cuts.

Very Cool carving.. and nice tools you bought as well.. :wink:

Nice design and very clean - nice work! :D

kool stuff!Cheers Watango

Thanks for the compliments guys.
Besides putting on a stain, which I can't afford for a few weeks, i've finished my first carving. There's a couple of tight spots that could do with some more sanding but I'm happy with it how it is and don't want to spend hours trying to get a couple of small bits perfect and risk damaging it somehow. I'll post more pics when it's stained. Time to start my next one.

[ Edited by: swizzle 2010-04-26 01:47 ]

Love the design. Simply but very cool.

Very nice, clean and simple design. I like it a lot! The tools you got are nice high end and will last a life time. Nice choice.

Excelent cut for a first! He look like a mug design... in wood! :roll:

Post again!

J.

Nice nice nice love the flow of the lines.

Here's a couple of pics of my second carving. I just need to finish the top of the head, do the teeth, and then just clean it up and do the sanding.

Swizzle you are really good. The way the nose goes on the first carving is really stylish. I think it's different from any tiki I've ever seen. It's inspiring to see someone just be perfect on a first try. What kind of wood are you using? Wendy

Thanks for those kind words Wendy. Not sure about perfect, but it did come out pretty good if I do say so myself. As for what wood it is i'm not sure. I think it's some sort of native, either a wattle or a eucalypt. They are just off-cuts from a neighbours yard. It's very nice to carve.

Swizzle, I can't wait to see your stuff in another dozen pieces and after you get more tools. Way Excellent Beginnings to be Very proud of.

Thanks Benzart. I'm looking forward to doing more stuff.
Here's a couple of updated pics (which don't look much different to the earlier ones). I haven't finished yet as i've been busy but i've done the teeth and then had to modify the top section when I came across a problem. In my earlier photos of this guy you can just make out that I was going to have a couple of triangular shapes on each side at the top of the head. When I started on the right side I hit a chunk in the wood that chipped it quite badly so i've had to remove that whole section.

You can see in this photo the dark patch at the top which caused the chip. I'm thinking it might have been an insect living in the tree that created it. The wood was definitely harder in that area.

I now need to make it all even, clean it up, and then do the sanding.

I finished my second carving. As anyone who works with wood knows sanding is a necessary evil, and I certainly didn't enjoy sanding this one. There's a lot of tight small areas I just couldn't get to properly so it's a little rough in some areas. I need to go out and buy some stain, but until then I have a few more pieces of this wood so it's time to start the next one.

(Excuse the shadows. Had to take the pics inside with the flash).

hey swizzle, im a newbie too :D you got some skills man! love the style of your tikis :D keep it up!

Thanks Andy. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work too.
I scored a couple of good sized logs yesterday so today I started on my first full body Ku. Drawing a 2D image onto a 3D object was confusing the hell out of me, but I just got stuck into it. I could visualize it in my head how it needed to look so I just carved until it started taking the shape I knew I needed. I've got it all worked out now. Although I think I might invest in a chainsaw. Removing large sections of wood is not only hard on the hands but extremely time consuming. With a chainsaw I think I would have made a lot more progress on this guy in the same amount of time.

Here is the design drawn on. I think i'll change the eyes and nose when I get to it though. I'm not really concerened with carving the head/face, it's the body I want to get right first. It's just under 3 1/2 foot tall.

Its hard to tell from the photo but there is quite a bit of wood removed, although that being said there is also still a lot more to go. I can see it starting to take shape and I'm looking forward to getting it roughed out so that I can then start cleaning it up properly and doing the intricate stuff which is what I enjoy.

:D Swizz! Go BIG and carve DEEP!! Grrr... :D

Ah, so that's the reason you bought a chainsaw! What kind did you get, and what size?

Looks like you're doing a stand up job of going to bigger tikis, and full bodied tikis at that. Nice work! Your layout on the log and initial carvings all looks great too.

Well done! He is looking good. Way to go after a full body.

On 2010-06-02 17:30, 4WDtiki wrote:
Ah, so that's the reason you bought a chainsaw! What kind did you get, and what size?

Hi 4WDtiki. Here's a photo. The brand is called OZITO. Its a reasonably cheap one but appears OK quality It has a 12" bar on it and I had a little play with it when I got home from work today and went alright. I've never used one before so i've got to get used to handling it.

Thanks for the compliments Hewey and seeksurf. I have done more work on the body since then and will do more this weekend then post some pics. It's slow going and I can see it will be a while till he is completely finished but i'll get there.
I also got around to staining my first two carvings. It's a stain and varnish in Dark Mahogany/Jarrah. #1 has two coats and #2 has one with a second coat on the raised sections.

#1 (a bit out of focus)

#2

hey swizz, hows it going with your big chap? initial pics look very promising,its very well marked out :D i need to find a big log soon so i can have a go at a full body :D i just got a fairly big load of smaller logs so i am going to be keeping busy doing heads :D

That last one you drew out looks insane.

I bet it comes out really good.

Very nice work! The stains came out really well. Like the double stain. Is the new carve pine? Can be a bummer to work with if it has lots of knots. So, How is it going?

Very nice! great tikis and im digging the color and finish well done.

On 2010-06-07 11:36, pjc5150 wrote:
That last one you drew out looks insane.
I bet it comes out really good.

Thanks pjc5150. There's some (slow) progress pics below.

On 2010-06-07 14:36, Tikilizard wrote:
Very nice work! The stains came out really well. Like the double stain. Is the new carve pine? Can be a bummer to work with if it has lots of knots. So, How is it going?

Thanks for the compliment Tikilizard. I was a bit reluctant to stain them to start with but I am happy with how they turned out. No it's not pine, the guy who gave me the log/s (I have another) said it is cypress. It's quite nice to carve however its very stringy or fibrery (is that a word?) running with the grain. I have to work outside and it's winter here in Melbourne, so that means nice days whilst i'm stuck at work and then rain on weekends, so I haven't got as much done as I'd like to. It's hard to tell from the photos but I have nearly finished roughing out the body (besides the right arm), although I have a lot to clean up and shape to get it to the finish I want before I start on the head.

On 2010-06-07 18:27, seeksurf wrote:
Very nice! great tikis and im digging the color and finish well done.

Thanks seeksurf

So was any of this progress done with the new chainsaw? :D

Had good weather today so I got stuck into my KU.We have a long weekend coming up so I think i'll be able to get him completely roughed out in the next two days, then after that it will be the slow process of cleaning him up.

On 2010-06-08 05:23, 4WDtiki wrote:
So was any of this progress done with the new chainsaw? :D

No it wasn't 4WDtiki. I did straighten the top and feet on the KU today and whilst I had the chaisaw out, I did this.

He's very rough at the moment as i've never used a chainsaw before but it's given me a good shape to work on with the chisels. I'm pretty confidant that i'll be able to clean him up with chisels so he looks half resonable. It will have to wait a while though as I want to finish the KU first.

hey swizzle.... if your ever up in nsw look us up ...so far great stuff.... sometimes those chainsaws can do more damage than good.... chisels = radness

Hey Cap'n Pharaoh, I do agree with you regarding chisels. I only bought the chainsaw to be able to cut the ends of the logs straight and also to give me a quick rough shape. Then i'll get the chisels out. Where in NSW are you? I might head up to Sydney in about a month.

Didn't do anything yesterday as I went out, but here's the progress I made today. Still a lot of work to go on this fella.

Looking good! A chain saw is just a fancy chisel.

This is carving I did before I started work on the Ku. It's a gift for my friend and it's the logo for his website the Careless Navigator. I didn't post any pics prior to finishing it as I didn't want him to see it before I gave it to him.
It's actually my second attempt at it also. The first one was on a smaller piece of wood and kept chipping because of all the small tight corners, so I had to discard it. I (sort of) cheated on this one and used a router on quite a lot of it so that I wouldn't have the same problem.

This is where i'm up to on the Ku. I'm only spending a few hours each weekend on it, so that's why it's taking so long. Also, every time I go to clean up a section (mouth,hands,feet) I keep changing my mind and start carving deeper. I have no idea when i'll stop, but the next time I post some pics will be when it's been sanded and stained.

And here's a gratuitous pussy shot. This is Chester thinking he's helping.

This ku is looking nice. Very clean work so far.

Great job on the Careless Navigator, swizz!

wow, he's looking really good :D you did a particularly good job on the mouth

The cat carving is fantastic, so realistic! Not very tiki though...

The CN carving is awesome, the two tone staon effect works well. Love it.