Rootball Nirvana

Have you ever had a rootball go bad? Sometimes the heart of the palm goes bad and infects the entire trunk with rot. This isn't a regular occurance at my shop but it is extremely frustrating - I have a waiting list for rootball tiki customers. The last time this happened to me I grabbed my chainsaw in a fit of rage and sliced the rootball right off (about six inches from the base). I discarded the rotten trunk and about three weeks later performed a Frankenstein-esque experiment. Using the trusty chainsaw, I hollowed out the heart of the rootball head. Although the interior was mushy, the outer three inches of the stock was nice and hard. Next, I found a nice piece of palm stock with a diameter slightly smaller than that of the rootball and married the two together. It is a basic plug-n-socket fit with 3" woodscrews driven from the outside at four inch intervals. After carving and burnishing the tiki, I concealed the seam with several bands of 1" thick hemp rope...sort of a headband effect. Anyway, this "monster" turned out pretty cool. Now I can use the rootball regardless of the shape of the trunk. Cool huh?

Tiki Mon

Looking forward to visiting your lair whenever we, the FLA village, decide on a date for the Hawaiian Inn show.

Check in Tiki Events on the Hawaiian Inn thread for dates and maybe you could join us.

Hope you've got a rootball-head around for us to marvel at.

Pablus,
That sounds like fun...I usually attend two art shows a month, but if I'm not off somewhere doing a show I'd be glad to knock back a few boat drinks with ya. Of course you might be able to catch me at the Grant Seafood festival in February on your way down south. Beer and seafood and art! Of course, you're welcome to stop by my tiki lair, too. I work out of my house but I usually have a dozen finished tikis standing around and another dozen being worked on. Folks come by all the time and look...and buy. Here's a link to one of my recent rooty mon tikis: http://www.tikimon.net/Customer/customer.html
let me know what you think.

Tiki Mon

Hey, it's Sideshow Bob(u)!

That TIki is very entertaining to look at. Hope I can see something like that up close.

Yep, it's hard staying in a bad mood with ole' Sideshow staring at you...(Crusty laughter)hauhau ha ha