New stuff added!!

Those guys sure have a lot of style and personality... My favorite's the Moai!

On 2010-03-30 06:35, AlohaStation wrote:

I love them all but especially the guy on the left and the Tang. How tall are they ?

Bravo,

Benjamin.

Great pieces, all of them! and i love the 'Benz' :wink:

Thanks Clarita, Al,, HE made me sit for 3 hours to do that so I guess it Should look a bit like me,, Thanks Tom!! :o
:P :D

No problem Benz. He sat at his house in PSL and I carved at mine in Deerfield - that's why the details are a bit off.

[ Edited by: AlohaStation 2010-04-12 10:37 ]

great work man and thanks for your advice on staining my project. the mold has stayed away so i might put the poly on soon. i cant believe you use an exacto. Does the blade ever snap on ya? i hate using mine at work for that reason. just use it for cutting foam core and presentation board. I have a few battle wounds of my own throughout the years of messing with an exacto blade.

I love to look at your work aloha....keep'em coming please

Creative Chimp

[ Edited by: Creative Chimp 2010-04-12 13:25 ]

Wow - over a month since an update. I promise that I haven't been goofing off too much. Here's what's been going on...

Last year Tiki_Kiliki honored me with the job of creating this year's Hukilau Pendant. The theme was to honor the fallen Barney West tiki that once resided in the Mai Kai's garden (I lovingly named him "Barney"). This was no small job and finding good images of the tiki in its original condition was difficult. I only remember what it looked like for the past 10 years so the design came from those images and the blender that is my head. After some research I dove in and came up with the following design. I teamed up with pdrake to produce the following resin duplicates. The original was carved in Walnut, but I wanted to experiment with some color variations...

The final pendants are available here http://www.thehukilau.com and will be available at the event.

Here's some sneak peaks at the other thing I'm doing for the Hukilau. It will be the trophy for the winner of the 2010 Hukilau Room Crawl. Its a Muddler carved in Maple. This will have alot of small detail that I don't want to show yet.

I've got lots of stuff that I will have available at Hukilau. There's not a lot of big stuff, but I will have a few medium sized things along with plenty of Pocket Tikis/pendants. Here is a small preview of some of the stuff. First is some of the carved pieces followed by resin work.




YES - glow in the dark!!

I want give a special shout out to Perry who has been doing the casting for me!! He will be sharing my table at The Hukilau. Make sure to come by and give us a shout.

PS. I will also have several of my buddy's (wplugger) tikis for sale as well!

i have a resin tiki army at my command.

great stuff Aloha. I look forward to checking it out at Hukilau. You should make some more of those muddlers - that one looks awesome.

Amazing work AlohaStation! I hope to see your work up close at the Hukilau!

Gonna miss ya at Huki Tom. Your stuff looks perfect! Have a mai tai for me, and don't forget to lead a newcomber or two on a Mai kai garden tour like ya did for me a couple a years ago!
Aloha

As you can tell I have been doing a lot of resin work lately. Here is a project that I have been working on for almost a year. I first carved the figure for this just after Hukilau last year. It is the new large tiki that was placed in the Mai Kai Garden. I was never happy with the way the logo came out so it sat in the box for a while. After 3 tries I was happy with the result. Just in time for this year's Hukilau. These are available exclusively thru the Mai Kai Gift Shop for Hukilau.

I hope to carve other recognizable tikis for the Mai Kai - so keep your eyes peeled.

These are neat!!!

On 2010-05-21 16:55, harro wrote:
You should make some more of those muddlers - that one looks awesome.

absolutely - I'll buy the next one after harro! very nice work.

Well Hukilau was a great time and I managed to make a little extra cash. Thank you to everyone that came by the table to talk. By Saturday my voice was shot and alcohol tolerance went through the roof. I finally have a little extra time to post some of the stuff I had at the Hukilau.

I will start with the great regret - this piece was supposed to go to The Luau By The Lake auction for TikiKate. I had to go out of town unexpectantly and it never made it into the mail. Instead it will be going West for the event in August. Hand-carved original in walnut.

Next are all of the hand-carved pendants that i have left-over. I never realized how many I had... If you are interested in any of these please shoot me PM. These are priced from $30-$75 and are negotiable.

Killer. You've got a great eye for design, and some sharp carving skills. GROG like.

GROG proud to own one of your tikis.

Are these resin, and do you have any left?

Grog - Thanks for comps. No those are the wood originals (I redid the Marq). I do have some resin stuff left over. I'll post more images in the Marketplace tonight. Till then, here are just some of samples of the resin pendants I have. $12/each mailed - leather cord not shown.

Loving the mini pendants at the bottom there. The Marq's teeth are GREAT!

Nice nice nice! man i need to get on the purchasing some pendents.

Next to my house is a large park and a BIG piece of property owned by the DOT. The DOT property WAS very overgrown (there was a homeless camp in there for a while). They have recently gone in and cleared the property. Always on the lookout for more wood I found several palms that were uprooted and set to be mulched. I found these two in the pile of about 30. The root ball was at least 5' tall (on its side) - I estimate it weighed over 500lbs. Anyone with a 4WD and 10 strong buddies is welcome to pick them up. The pile behind the palms was 20' high and was only one of 10 such piles. Most of the wood that was cleared was the invasive Brazilian Pepper.

If you haven't seen this yet...

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=37040&forum=12&8&PHPSESSID=4362596d997d569d6c1618c59720deb6

Scored some nice palm logs this weekend. For the past several years I have struggled to find really good Palm logs to carve. Either they were the wrong species, too thin or rotten. This has all changed and hopefully the following will change my fortune. The log is 6+' long and fresh cut. I couldn't resist and dove in with reckless enthusiasm. Spent most of the weekend carving on this guy. He is currently much farther along but this is the only photo I took.

Woo who! ya. This is gonna be good.

I like that "Reckless abandon" thing!

Here's an update...

No carving this weekend - going out of town.

That is a nice log. Fan palm? It's going to be an even nicer tiki! You got great carves. 8)

Getting closer. Still needs to dry some more. I could barely lift it. This is the best piece of Sabal Palm I've had in a long time.

24 days later - must be finished by now? I'm hanging to see what direction this guy is gonna take.
I'm also hanging for some new AS magic for the collection - I love some of those pieces you made for oasis. If you ever want some new stonework give me a call!

love this design too aloha.....so like paipo said.... is it done????? huh????

I agree weres da beef!

Yes!! Looking GREAT!

Outta sight A.S.!

Nice work!

Thanks for inquiries. I have to admit that I've been a bit lax in updating - I have legitimate excuses - really. Day job has been busy, its too hot to carve during the day, spent last week surfing hurricane swells, had some camera issues, and in between I've taken on some house projects. I'm always carving on something, just not for very long. My swap project is about half done(pics soon), I've started another mid-size chunk of Redwood, and I am working on this big guy. The big guy is done - for now - I have to let it sit and dry, he's still growing mold and very heavy. Here's a picture of him waiting patiently for me to have some free time.

Good thing is - I have half a dozen more logs waiting to be started!!

Was that a hint at a Bird Swap project? :D

Keep up the good work Tom, always cool stuff pouring out of your workshop!

Lookin great so far. Buzzy told me to spray windex or any ammonia based product on the moldy areas.... Cant wait for the updates!

Cool carving - any updates?

Excellent looking Carve aloha, Glad you finally found a good piece of palm. It Looks like Washingtonian or what they call Mexican Fan but I can't tell for sure. Did the palm fronds have thorny looking stalks?
Can't wait to see this guy!

Sorry no updates. He's still drying and I'm distracted with some other household projects (this weekend will be spent surfing!!!!).

Benz - I'm not sure, because I picked these up after they were cut down. We have a friend that has started on a 12' log - hopefully he will post pics soon (he's just getting started)

When it comes to Palm I have found that where you live has specific effects on the logs. The logs I have been getting are full of water - it makes sense, since it rains here almost every day in the summer. I have cut down dead trees and had water flow freely out of the log. Species is another issue. Here in SFL there are so many different species its hard to keep track of whats what. I was recently enlightened to just how little I know when it comes to Palm species. I have no less than 6 different species in my yard alone - and what I knew them as was totally wrong!

The best thing for mold growing on fresh wood is to let the log dry. You can kill or remove the mold, but if the log still has moisture then mold will continue to grow. I won't finish this guy for a few weeks - which is good news for my "honey do" list.

Looking forward to an update.

Well its been a month and the tiki spent his time in the sweatbox. After spending a month drying out I dove into finishing him. Paint, burn and Poly. He's 6' tall and the skull is right at eye level, very ominous. So just in time for Halloween...

[ Edited by: AlohaStation 2010-10-26 18:52 ]

That looks great! That's paint on the skull?!? Looks nicely aged!

Classic! the the rough look you have going on with this fella.

Love that skull!

Sweet Jesus, that's amazing!! :o

friggin sweet tom............

I love the character in the skull! Nice!!

Tom, that's a hell of an awesome carve there. Nice work!

I love how the skull is a part of it all, yet looks like it was done separate and set upon the tiki.
Nice touch with the gouge under the skull!

Overall finish is sweet... a great vintage look to it!

very nice,Tom!
eye level!
excellent!