need some advice on finishing :)

hey guys :D im new to carving and found this fab website so im sure you guys will be the best port of call for advice on all things to do with finishing tikis.. if this has been covered before in depth, i apologise, i looked and couldn't find the exact advice online..
so i just finished carving my first tiki head (18 inches tall).. im not sure what wood it is (i live in the UK), its some kind of hardwood.. i think it might be beech.
I was hoping you could have a look and give me some advice on finishes.. I have applied some tribal tattoos to the carving in relief on the forehead and with a soldering iron for the facial tattoos.. basically im hoping these burnt tattoos will blend in with a dark-ish wood stain, so they can be seen but not too highly contrasting.. do you guys mix your stains? i tried rosewood on an offcut, and it was too dark.. also, do you apply some kind of oil preservative? and if so, would that be before or after staining? also, its fairly freshly cut, i de-barked it and stuck it in the greenhouse for a couple of months before carving if that is a factor that affects what kind of finishes are applied.. anyway, any help would be very much appreciated.. i am quite pleased with the carving and would like to get the finish right.. :D thanks in advance
here he is :)

Welcome and great first tiki.

Finish is a hard one. Its a personal choice. If its your fist try at this you in for
a crazy ride.

If you go with a dark stain the tats will be hard to see. You could stain then re-cut the tats and stain lighter or darker. Im no expert buy a long shot. There are guys that have this stain work down and will give you some good advice.
Mix your stain all you want. Best advice i can give is get the basic idea and go for
it that is the best way i have been able to lean.

indoor or outdoor tiki?

Great tiki! Has a unique almost alien look. I am new to the game also but have been a faux painter for the past 10yrs. and my vote would be to stain it something light. Maybe a natural stain or you could highlight and blend some dark stains to create some more depth. Cool work! Later, Tatumantiki

On 2010-05-10 18:51, seeksurf wrote:
Welcome and great first tiki.

Finish is a hard one. Its a personal choice. If its your fist try at this you in for
a crazy ride.

If you go with a dark stain the tats will be hard to see. You could stain then re-cut the tats and stain lighter or darker. Im no expert buy a long shot. There are guys that have this stain work down and will give you some good advice.
Mix your stain all you want. Best advice i can give is get the basic idea and go for
it that is the best way i have been able to lean.

thanks very much :D its kinda that awkward size where its too big to go on the mantlepiece, but a bit too small to be an outdoor feature.. for the sake of argument 'coz its a first one, im gona say its an indoor tiki,.. probably be able to find a spot by the fireplace or him :)
you're right its something i'm just going to have to learn over time through practice.. i will mix a small amount of rosewood into some lighter stain and test on an offcut til im happy.. think thats the best route. fingers crossed he will look pretty good when done :D thanks again for your help, will post up again when finished :D

On 2010-05-10 20:23, tatumantiki wrote:
Great tiki! Has a unique almost alien look. I am new to the game also but have been a faux painter for the past 10yrs. and my vote would be to stain it something light. Maybe a natural stain or you could highlight and blend some dark stains to create some more depth. Cool work! Later, Tatumantiki

cheers tutuman! :D yeahhh i will try mixing a lighter stain with a touch of rosewood, see how that goes, thanks for your help :P

ALWAYS - practice on a scrap piece of wood FIRST!

Start with a light stain and then go darker with successive coats. As for finish, there are a million ways to go. To ease into it, you could finish him with a wood finishing wax like Minwax.

hey guys, thanks very much for your advice, I have finished it off now, i used antique pine with a little rosewood mixed in, came out pretty nice and old looking..

I then used teak oil, which brought out the colouring and made it much richer looking, although for some reason gold patches appeared in places,.. don't know whats causing that.. otherwise, pretty pleased with it for a first tiki :D

this image highlights some of the golden patches

It came out great. The only person that's gonna notice the off-color patches will be you. On to the next one!!

On 2010-05-14 06:37, AlohaStation wrote:
It came out great. The only person that's gonna notice the off-color patches will be you. On to the next one!!

yes indeed :D got a nice chunky 27" log de-barked and ready and waiting, just gotta wait for it to stop raining argh!.. when i got my own place, going to have a nice spacious workshop so i can do my carvings indoors if its wet outside.. :P wish i lived in florida.. :D going to use the chainsaw for the next one i think :) thanks for the feedback alohastation :D

SWEEEET! Very nice and unique! Features really standout.

Outstanding first tiki. Really nice well done. Most first tikis mine
included don't even come close to this.

I like the color patches. It adds effect.

thanks for your kind words guys! :D appreciate it, anyway, looking out the window and it doesnt seem to be raining today, even though they said it would be.. so i think if it stays this way, going to get onto tiki#2 :D chainsaw time, wish me luck :D

i had a go at carving with the chainsaw for the first time yesterday, got the mouth really good then got cocky and made the mistake of trying to do the eyes and nose with the chainsaw on a fairly small log.. so ended up with some wonky eyes, mangled nose and some rather cut up cheeks :P anyway, its experience and next time i will probably just use the chainsaw for cutting the logs to size and doing the open mouth, and i will chisel the rest..

ouch..

Now it's time for the angle grinder.

Get a carving bar for the chain saw if you don't have one.
Way to go at it. I have never seen someone go @ it like this deep and daring
right off the bat. I thinks its great.

thanks seeksurf :D no i havent got a carving bar yet, i'll look into it, cheers :D need to find a few more large logs now..
in the meantime got couple more small ones.. started one yesterday and i'm very nearly finished carving him now :D going to hollow him out and make a garden lantern :D will post images later :)

A very good first chainsaw tiki. You said mangled eyes and nose, but they are still very fixable even with a regular saw bar, just cut deeper, make a larger v-cut. And as somebody said, time to pull out the angle grinder.

JP

On 2010-05-18 06:13, JohnnyP wrote:
A very good first chainsaw tiki. You said mangled eyes and nose, but they are still very fixable even with a regular saw bar, just cut deeper, make a larger v-cut. And as somebody said, time to pull out the angle grinder.

JP

thanks JP, I will see if i can have a go at rescuing him :)

I finished carving tiki number 2 over the last couple of days, so i thought I would share some photos before I apply a finish.. here's Smokey the tiki lantern! :D he will no doubt be watching over my summer bbqs, and making sure i don't burn the sausages while i crack open a cold one :P

had great fun carving this little chap, and the chainsaw came in very useful with hollowing him out..

burning off the loose wood strands inside, and giving him a nice authentic scorched look

anyway, i'm guessing the next stage after sanding off the insides would be to apply the stain and then some kind of flame retardant stuff on him, so he can house a candle or oil lamp without going up in flames.. so I better go see if i can find some :D

keeping him inside as an air refresher before finishing him, his smokey insides smell amazing :D

ok going to ask for a bit of help.. anyone on here made hollow tikis to put candles/ oil lamps in?
i guess staining him would be the first step.. I cant use teak oil this time 'coz of flammability, so im thinking i will have to apply a matte varnish.. i think i will have to varnish only whats visible on the outside and apply a flame retardant penetrant to the inside.. anyone got any advice on finishing tikis where fire is going to be a feature? does this sound about right? thanks :)

The heat from a candle is mostly generated above the flame. Having the top open should be all you need to do to it (unless you plan on building a bonfire in it?). Another easy solution would be to make it electric - or even battery powered) with a flickering bulb.

thanks for your help Alohastation :) yeahhh, im sure you're right a candle isn't going to do much.. if it was a problem in the future, i could treat him with some flame retardant stuff..

been quite busy last couple of weeks so haven't made much tiki progress.. but stained up Smokey the tiki lantern, and carved a little club-shaped tribal piece in a free afternoon, so i thought i'd share :D

need to pick up some varnish or something to finish him off..

Hey Andy, Smokey looks great. I was just looking at him thinking he'd make a great stool with some sort of battery operated lights inside. What happened to the guy you got stuck into with the chainsaw?

he's still around.. chilling in my garage atm i think :D one of the links in my chainsaw chain bent out while i was starting a new one so that set me back a bit, which was annoying as hell, coz im sure i had the tension and everything right.. i'd only used it on about 5 occasions, bt oh well.. got a new chain now. i've been quite busy recently bt going to do some more carving soon..
thanks im pretty pleased with Smokey, he still needs a finish, yeah was thinking he could house an electric light for inside, but i was kinda hoping to have a candle or oil lamp burning in him for when i have him out in the garden in the evenings.. so now im wondering if he will be flammable if i varnished him..
hows things in oz? you getting much carving done? :D

Not as much as i'd like. It's winter here now so it's close to dark by the time I get home from work. Can only really carve on the weekend/s. I can understand you wanting some sort of flame inside him. What about lining the inside with some sort of fire-proof material?

[ Edited by: swizzle 2010-06-04 04:03 ]

[ Edited by: swizzle 2010-06-04 04:03 ]

thats a poss, you can get some flame retardant coatings, but i think that a candle won't do too much.. i just don't want to apply something that turns out to be massively flammable, and him to go up.. apparently polyurethane varnish is only flammable in its liquid state so hopefully that should be ok..

You're right, I don't think a candle is going to cause too much of a problem, however, looking at the size of him I reckon you're gonna need a bloody big candle to get the effect you're after.

he's actually only 14" tall.. the photo makes him look a bit bigger than he is lol .. i'd just mowed the lawn :P

it's been a wet day today, so i had to make something tiki-themed to help me forget about english weather :D had a leftover piece of birch plywood lying around, so i thought i'd do some tiki burning on it with the soldering iron :D nothing like a tiki to raise your spirits is there. :D
here it is, just needs a coat of varnish to finish..
its stopped raining now so i could take it outside to take some pics :)

That's awesome Andy. The flowers look great.

thanks swizzle :D glad you like it.. i should probs be posting this in a diff area coz its not really a carving, but oh well.. my thread :D

Nice...cool looking tiki and great shading with a soldering iron.

thanks head hunting dude :D yeah pretty pleased with it, an afternoon well spent.. :D

I'm impressed and with a soldering iron Wow!

thanks seeksurf :D

ok i think im going to ask for a bit of advice on this one, i've made a tiki candle holder, and i can't decide whether to give it a light stain or just varnish it as it is.. what you guys think?

Personally, I think it looks OK as is but a light stain would be the way to go. By the way,great design. I thought it was a coffee cup holder at first glance. That looked like steam coming from the Tikis head.

[ Edited by: swizzle 2010-06-08 15:04 ]

[ Edited by: swizzle 2010-06-08 15:06 ]

thanks swizzle, glad you gave me that advice because i was going to just varnish it, but i mixed a new stain combo and it came out looking really nice :D Have also applied a coat of varnish to it, so light reflects nicely off the top rim..

here it is on the mantle next to my short chap carving :D think its the first time he's seen fire.. :P

..I WILL turn my parents respectable english house into a tiki grotto :P

Perfect.

thanks swizz :D how are you getting on with your big guy? finding the time on weekends?

well done

thanks seeksurf, appreciate it :D

since i posted some photos of my stuff up on f/b, got a couple guys over here who want to buy already :D i will be sad to see my tikis go coz i put some time into these first pieces, but then i guess i can use the profits to buy some decent large curved gauge chisels, and a carving bar for the chainsaw :D be more productive
i didnt realise people here in liverpool would be into tikis but apparently so.. :D

hey again tiki headz! thought i'd share my newest tiki and another work-in-progress :D

made this guy for my lil sis's birthday over the last couple of days. he's carved from a gum tree log, i think it's eucalyptus.. i have quite a few of these left over.. i noticed that before i started carving the log had started to split like crazy, so decided to use it for practicing with the chainsaw.. the features have ended up a lot smaller than i originally planned, due to my lack of control with the chainsaw, and trying to balance his face out again with the chisels after, but i think he has turned out pretty cool :D
so once i had him carved, i designed a maori-style moko and burned it on with the soldering iron, then set a bonfire going and rolled him around in it for a while to give him a smokey old look to him.. the cracks that have formed from the log drying out help give him the old look too, which i like :)

i wanted some contrast between his different features so i used some stain on his body, nose, mouth and eyes.. the stain turned out a lot darker than i anticipated, i wanted to keep it quite subtle colour contrast, but my sister said she really likes it with the high contrast so that was a relief.. :D im very glad she likes it :D i do myself now, he just ended up a bit different than i had in mind..

i'm thinking i will need to treat the wood to keep some moisture in, so it doesn't split too much more.. any advice on that would be appreciated :) anyway, here he is:

heres a couple of progress shots of another carving i've been working on..,

i've had to keep gluing bits back on which is a pain, but he'll get there..

been in the garden doing some more carving, its been roasting hot and i've been feeling very tropical-y and tiki inspired.. :P this fellas taking much longer than i thought he would, but i'm pleased with the shape he's taking, hollowing out the mouth with the chisels was the laborious part.. was very tempted to just get the chainsaw out,.. but i thought,.. hmm with my control, i'd accidentally go a bit too deep, or nick the lip by mistake, so i decided to stick to the good ol' chisels and just work up a bit more of a sweat :D
anyway, here are some more progress shots, he's pretty much carved now but a bit more to do before i break out the dremel, i'm going to carve some detail lines on this guy, instead of going overboard with the tribal tattoos with the soldering iron like i have been doing :P

anyway, mahalo! hope everyones enjoying similar warm tiki feelings :P l8az..

This one flows together very nicely. Nice job