New stuff added!!

BigT - I cut my left-hand index finger early in carving the first of this series of fronds. Its a tiny cut right on the end. That SOB hurts like a muther!!

Here's last nights "sketch"

Here's an image of the Gash in my hand. Its been a difficult week working around it. Every time I touch it shooting pain!! AND I have to type at my day job - that's been an adjustment.

Those are nice. I especially like yesterday's Marquesan style guy. Pretty impressive for being crafted while watching TV!

Cool stuff man.

Love all three pieces, excellent work for a quicky.

On 2016-03-09 06:58, AlohaStation wrote:
Here's an image of the Gash in my hand. Its been a difficult week working around it. Every time I touch it shooting pain!! AND I have to type at my day job - that's been an adjustment.

have u tried the superglue trick??

More palm frond whittling. I finished this guy this weekend and moved on the the last piece of this stem. More to come. TIKI SKULL

nice quick work work turning those fronds into cool little wooden pygmies

The last piece of the current frond project. Don't worry we had a storm last night that knocked a fresh batch of fronds out of the trees. More storms tonight!!

U be killin it Bruddah
Great work

For those that are curious about the palm fronds, here you go. Royal palm frond - Fresh, trimmed (removed the leathery shaft cover), cleaned (removed the leaves), and peeled (use the angle grinder to remove the outer skin. After about a week they are fairly dry, however , you can carve on them at any point. The more fresh, the wetter and softer. As they dry they beome more wood-like.

WOW! I was featured as Artist of the week!! When do I get the check?
http://www.slammie.com/atomicgrog/blog/2016/04/01/the-week-in-tiki-feb-16-29-2016-rum-and-tiki-event-roundup-new-tiki-bars-in-d-c-s-f-photos-and-event-recaps/#artist

One of the previous fronds. WIP

Congrats on the artist article Aloha, new frond is killer!

I got a package in the mail today!! I didn't know what it was and my daughter is the one that got it from the mailman. She was in a panic as the package was "leaking". She called me and asked if I had ordered something (I order liquids all the time and some are not so good for you). I told her to take it outside and open it - slowly. She busted out laughing when she saw what it was and that they had leaked! Thanks MadDog! What kind of tree are they from?

What was in there to leak!!!??? :o

Those are Canary Island palm fronds. They are soft in the middle like balsa wood. Thought you might like to experiment with them :wink:

I'm not sure what leaked? The fronds looked pretty dry. However, palms store water for prolonged dry spells. If this came from your area - I would have to guess that it was water that was stored in the fibers??? I'm gonna strip one this weekend and give you some details.

[ Edited by: AlohaStation 2016-04-08 07:20 ]

So I peeled and carved the Canary Palm Frond. It was a lot like carving a cork - very soft with inconsistant grain. I would love to get my hands on some that are fresh. I'm sure they would be better if there was more moisture in the fibers. I'm gonna look for some around here. I gave one to WillCarve - we'll see if he can do anything with it.

Good things come to those that sweat and strain!

[ Edited by: AlohaStation 2016-04-11 06:49 ]

That came out great though. Like to see what it looks like stained.

I couldn't wait either. This is after "the treatment".

niiice, love the old vintage look of it.

Here's a sneak peek of the frond. I still have to mount it before I show the whole thing.

Stunning

Killer fronds! Wish the palm fronds up in the great white norte of FL were as beefy as the southern palms. I have used Sabal palm fronds for some small stuff and worked great.

[ Edited by: Keylo 2016-04-18 19:54 ]

Killer fronds! Wish our palm fronds up in the great white norte of FL were as beefy as your southern palms.

Here are some more fronds. The first is one of the Canary Palm fronds. I am embarrassed by how long it took me - so lets just say it was fast.

This is the next Royal frond. I peeled it and let it dry too fast. You can see where it started to split. Hopefully it will add some character.

Excellent Aloha!

Finally got some time to finish carving this guy up.

Heading to Vegas for a week - he'll get "the treatment" when I get back.

Sure do love your style Tom, that one is a 10!

I was in Vegas last week for business. Got to visit with pdrake. While hanging out at his house he hands me a few tikis. I start complimenting them and being cordial asked who carved them? ME - WTF - when did that happen? I carve so many little tikis that these just happen to fly under the radar of my long-term memory.

I worked on this one while I was traveling last week. It was a fun experiment smuggling my hook knife through airport security (twice).

Tom, I can't believe how far you have taken these Frond carvings, You've come a Long way! Can't beliece you smuggled a hook knife through Airport Security, How did you do it?

You ROCK Tom!!!!! I love it, thank you!!! :D

You didn't have to do that, and it sets a bad precedence - I send you tree trimmings and you send me carved Tikis. This could escalate quickly - what can you do with this uprooted eucalyptus tree? :lol:

I saw that you had been in Vegas, wish I would have had time to drive the 5 hours to finally meet you in person :( one of these days!

That Moai frond is killer!!!

Another Frond

Excellent Tom!

So I was offered an opportunity to have a tiki placed in the front of the Mai-Kai from Tiki Kaliki. I was joined by WillCarve and Jeff Choinard in the project. She requested that I replicate the Mai-Kai Decanter (Tangaroa), WillCarve was to do a Lono, and Jeff was to do his signature Marq style. We would be replacing some worn-out fern tikis that sit next to the Valet station at the restaurant. So after some coercing, Will gave me a chunk of Pine that we had salvaged from a house down his street.

Since I was replicating another tiki - there was a plan and I just needed to execute it. One of the first things I did was strip off the bark and set about squaring up the log.

Next was the fun part - carving the shape and bringing out the tiki. Mostly chisel work while refining with the angle grinder.

Once I had the form there was a lot of refining for a final figure. More angle grinder work. When the form was done, I started on the details.

During the time that I was doing a lot of grinding and sanding, I developed a rash very similar to Poison Ivy. I build local Mountain Bike trails and will often develop rashes from stomping around in the woods. I thought the rash came from that - I was wrong! While finishing the final details I did not work on the trails and still developed the rash. After doing some investigating, I found that Pine can be a skin irritant. The rash was driving me crazy. I dedicated on last day to sanding and finishing and could stand it any more. I gave up! Packed the tiki in the car and headed to WillCarve's house. Dumped it off and left it in his qualified hands. I don't give up easily but this thing had me on my last swollen and itchy nerve! He finished it for me - Thank you Will!!

This past weekend we installed the new tikis.

WillCarve prepared the foundations and the straps in the days leading up to installation. Our fear wasn't that they would fall over but rather they would walk away. So he built foundations and strapped the crap out them - their not moving unless you destroy the pedestals. Theirs were carved in Cypress while mine is Pine. The chunk of pine had to weigh twice what the Cypress weighed - lifting them in place was a challenge. They looked great but needed some refinement. The lights that shine on the tikis was blocking a very important part of my carving - the Mai-Kai logo. So Will and I spent some time to redo the light on mine. It needed more so I added a patina to the logo and it now sits in all its glory looking fantastic!

This was a great project with a rewarding final outcome. I'm done with Pine! But I will admit the colors and wood were a pleasure to work with -- I just wish I wasn't allergic to it. So now when you come to the Mai-Kai you will be immediately greeted by the 3 Florida Bros. Enjoy and take some great pictures.

Pdrake cast some pendants for me. These were done using glow-in-the-dark powder added to the resin. They look great in the dark but look electric when exposed to black light. These will be for sale at the Hukilau next week.

Awesome carve MR. Itchy and same for Will and Jeff! Some killer work! My brother and I picked mangos one summer for a fruit company in Miami. He had to quit because he was allergic to the Mango sap. I saw what he went thru, close to insanity.

The latest Glow-in-the-dark tiki pendants.
Daylight

Dark

A recent commission. Finished Glow-in-the-dark tiki pendants.

[ Edited by: AlohaStation 2016-07-25 13:40 ]

You may know that I was part of replacing some old tikis at the entrance to the Mai-Kai.

What was replaced were 3 very old fern tikis that had deteriorated beyond the point of no return.

When we removed the old tikis, there were plans to use them in the garden somehow. Well I guess that fell through so I told them of my interest in the old bones. They let me have them!! We arranged pickup and I brought one home.

You can see faint traces of what the tikis look like. This one is actually missing the top of its head. The biggest issue is that this tiki was mounted on a metal pole. That pole went all the way through so the fern is essentially hollow. I have come up with a plan to fix that but it has to wait till I finish carving the outside. Here it is after one session...

Update will posted soon.

Fern carving wow they look good

IMO they are in FANTASTIC shape for being 60 years old and outside for those 60 years. I wish they had kept them and used them as is. Considering the Barney West stuff came into the gardens 10 years later and are in very poor condition or completely gone, these are amazing.

I am woefully behind with online updates. Here's a little something to hold you over... (carved in Walnut)...

Here's another quick mask I did while watching football this weekend. Carved in Mahogany.

Looks Kool

We recently hit the Mai Kai
Awesome....

killer stuff, tom. luv that little mask. what's up with the ferns? any new progress? I can't quite tell from the pics if you are re-carving them as their old forms or into something different. neat project, though.