Buzzy's work: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate

This one was stained with an oil based Red Mahogany and covered with two layers of poly

Two coats of clear for this one. The yellow tint will turn tan in a couple of days.

I used a water based rosewood stain for this one and covered it with two layers of poly

For the base I used a dark walnut stain. The figure was done with an amber poly stain.





Back to work!

Buzzy,

Those carvings look great man! The staining really accentuates your work. I like the guy with the arm bands. Too kool!

Yeah mang, I watched a lot of Thai boxing when I was in Thailand, but when it comes down to it, I'm a striker. I like to stand and do my thing, that's where I am the most comfortable. I've been on the ground, and the ground and pound is also available if things go that way - but I would rather stand. One order of elbows....to go!

-Gman

I just finished this one about an hour ago:


Right now I am waiting for another one to dry so I can put on another coat of clear poly. I should be done with it by sundown. More later.

Finished this one now too:


I cannot wait to get a chisel in my hand again-it has been five days in a row of no carving.

sanding line before and after


I almost have enough now to make a fence around my property. Here's a good 5'x 8' section:

just a few hundred more to go...

Those Tiki's look great all together. You can really crank those guys out. I must admit they look good standing by themselves but when i see a bunch of Tiki's all together I really get excited!! Are you vending at Oasis this year?? Are you planning on selling any of them? If you are let me know I might be interested. Anyway thanks for sharing - I can't wait to see what you will be doing next.
Later,
Spermy

Dear Mr (or Ms/Miss/Mrs) Sperm Whale
When I first found this site, my favorite pictures were of many different tikis all in a row too. I thought I would put a bunch in one spot here for others who like them like we do. Here is a stack of pictures of tikis in rows:
















Now I'll answer your questions, but I want to post before I lose my signal, so look below

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-02 22:55 ]

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-02 23:01 ]

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-03 00:46 ]

Again, (Still?) Great Stuff!

Your work is very inspiring, really.

Dear The Sperm Whale(I feel uncomfortable calling you spermy before we are formally introduced)
I was going to post about this later this week but since you brought it up I'll explain it now in the narrative form: A couple of months ago my girlfriend asked me what I was going to do with my growing tiki collection. I told her I didn't know because I had not really thought that through yet; I just enjoy the process of creating them. She said that I could sell them easily and that people would like them very much. She also told me about many ways in which I could market and sell my stuff. I told her it would be neat to sell my stuff and make some money, but I was too busy making stuff to stop and start marketing them. I' m definitely more into manufacturing than marketing and selling. And if I took time to try and sell them, would I have time left to manufacture what I would need to sell later on, or would the process end with both the manufacturing and marketing causing each other to fail simultaneously? I thought about this and told her that hopefully someday I would meet someone who wanted to open a store and not know what he/she wanted to sell. In this get rich quick scenario, this person would happen by my house and see all my tikis lying around and say to me, "Hey, I wanted to open a store but I did not know what I wanted to sell, but now that I see all your tikis here, I want to open a tiki store. I'll take all of them right now. Is there an ATM near here?" Then I would make tikis and sell them exclusively at my own factory outlet. But since my girlfriend knows that will not happen, she pressed me to sell my stuff. So I made a deal with her. I made her my partner. I asked her to handle the selling of my stuff from now on, and I will handle the making of my stuff. She could charge whatever she wanted for them; just give me a reasonable amount from the resulting transaction. So, to wrap this story up and finally get to the point, about a day later she hooked me up with my first paid commission and told me she was trying to get a booth at Tiki Oasis 6. It was a day or two past the deadline but she managed to get one. She's been handling all of the correspondence associated with it, and yes I will be selling all of my stuff there. Everything I have ever made and posted on this strand will be there. I think the pictures above pretty much shows everything I'm taking. If you want something that I have, I will see you there or I can get you in touch with my sales representative prior to then. I hope you made it through all this and thank you for showing interest.

Any other computer do it yourselfers know the answer to this:
I registered a domain name with godaddy and put up a free starter page. If I make a page on Publisher, how do I upload it to my .com site? I know there are computer forums to answer this but they get all techy in the lingo(IE Establish a ftp transfer through uploading the /ftp or Linux windows hyperlink server http blah blah) I figure at least one of you coherent people out there could help me out. Thanks

Not 100% sure, but I think you want to get some server space and have godaddy point to that space. This is the method that most of my friends use....

Great work, by the way! You are gonna be a rich man...

Hey Buzzy-- if you need any site help, shoot me an e-mail. Just registering a URL doesn't give you webspace, you may need to get some decent hosting. I personally use Dreamhost for all of my sites. I used a coupon code COBRA that gave me 50 bucks off. I pay about 119 a year for all the hosting and it has one click installs on wordpress blogs, forums, etc. - I use godaddy for all my urls and all you do is point them to the host you use, and make sure you have those urls listed at your host, and it all syncs up.

Anyway, didn't mean to get all nerdy-- great work! I know I'd be interested in buying some of tikis!

Tiki adventure #16:
After my last effort, I found out that I needed more room for the body. So on this one, I gave myself a whole four or five inches more than I did on the last one. That was a reasonable amount, but I will still need more room in the future if I want to do it better. The biggest challenge that I gave myself on this one was in the design of the mouth. I wanted the lips to be connected in the front and the mouth behind it to be hollow. I achieved my objective and was quite happy with the results on this one. I also wanted to make a more realistic and correct body on this one too. To do this, I made the complete body, front and back.
It started out just as all the others do: as a log. This was another Mexican fan palm, around 30 inches tall and eight inches in diameter. It's the one on the left:

Whole thing drawn out

face close up

body close up

I started out by carving the head. I was still doing the whole thing once and then going back and deepening the areas as needed. I would soon change this method and carve as deep as necessary the first time. Back then , I was still learning how deep everything needed to be and it usually took a couple of tries before I got it to look the way I wanted. For the mouth, I wanted the lips to touch and not be separated. To do this, I tunneled in from both ends and met in the middle. This picture was taken right before the mouth was carved hollow.

Here is the whole body after a first going over. It looks a little rough at this stage and will need further refinements

Here it is after the second going over. It looks much cleaner here than in the last picture and looks almost done.

It's hard to see, but the mouth hole punches all the way through with the front of the mouth still connected

Despite my careful measuring, somehow the "V" on the crown was off. It was centered on the front, but off by about 3/4" on the back.

The misalignment of the V on the head created problems on the back of the figure. Since the point of the v was not aligned on the back, the details down the back were out of true alignment too. I had to warp the details a little bit to make them appear correct. It is hard to notice it now unless it is measured or pointed out. This was also the first true 360 degree figure that I made. This picture shows the anatomically correct features of the back:

Here it is after the carving was completed and a light sanding was done:

Now he is waiting to be sanded with his other buddies

The biggest problem area for me on this one was the arms. They do not seem to be made the best way possible and look as though they were thrown on as an afterthought. I'm still working on making better arms to this day. This picture was taken right before I stained it.

this was another very nice looking piece of wood, so I decided to just use clear shellac on it

Here it is after a couple coats of Zinsler clear shellac

What I learned on this one:

1. I should have used a chainsaw on the first cut for the crown. I actually used a two inch wide chisel and it left it kind of rough looking and tore apart some of the fibers. The chainsaw would have left a cleaner cut.
2. Chicks dig tikis with butts.

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-16 08:51 ]

Tiki #17: So far on my journey as a tiki carver, I have embraced the roles of a beginner, a discoverer, an optimist, a joker, a learner, a loser, a planner, a recoverer, a copier, a victor, a fighter, a martial artist, a drafter, and a combacker . For tiki #17, I embraced the role of a scientist for the first time. This Tiki’s purpose was to test a certain type of log I’d seen a few times. This log exhibited a characteristic that might indicate that the log would not be a suitable one to use. I would use scientific method to test and prove my log type hypothesis at this time. I did not want to waste a bunch of time on it because it was just a test. There was a tiki design that I had in my tiki sources album that I originally picked out a long time before. It was on the first page I ever printed out from this site. I was going to do it much earlier in my development, but never had a suitable log to do it on. At this time, I needed a design I could do quickly. I always liked the look of the original, and figured this one could be done quickly to test my hypothesis. There was never any attempt to change this one from the original source and basically looks the same. I cannot remember who did it.

It is made from a Mexican fan palm, 2’ tall-8” in diameter.

Here it is drawn out

I started at the top and decided to work my way down

I started lightly sanding each area after I carved it. I think it looks more done this way.

Observation part of the scientific method process occurs now: count the cracks and note the size of each. set a timer and observe findings later

just the feet and arms to go

now the arms only

Done! Look how many more cracks developed in about an hour's time. this log was very dry and had no cracks on the outer layer originally

Here it is as appears today.

What I learned from this one:

1. Do not use a log with ends that look like this one's.
2. My hypothesis was found to be true through direct observable visible evidence.
3. I actually remember learning about the scientific method and its steps from junior high
4. Cracks in your work suck
5. Four months later, the cracks impact have lessened and actually give an outside tiki character.
6. The best way to make a tiki looked aged is to wait

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-04 01:53 ]

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-04 01:55 ]

Tiki #18
Tiki #18 was made from the same tree as the last couple of tikis. The log that this one was fashioned from was different than the others in that this one cracked right down the center vertically, while no other log from that tree had cracked as of yet. The crack did not appear right away; it materialized over time. About two months after stripping the log and letting it dry, a small crack appeared in the dead center of the log. It separated slightly on both ends at first, and got deeper as time went on. Eventually, a crack of about a half inch formed and it stayed that way. Soon after this one cracked, all the other logs left from this tree cracked in the exact same spot. I'm thinking that the tree split slightly when it was cut down and the cracks formed as this area dried unevenly. Since the crack stopped spreading after it initially appeared, I decided to cut the log in half and carve two pieces from the same log.
I had been entertaining the idea of carving into a half log for some time at this point. The split log provided me with the perfect opportunity to try doing this for the first time. I had seen the Benzart picture standing next to two split logs and wanted to give that a try. The design of this one would lend well to being carved on only a half log.It was based upon a Hawaiian tiki design I found somewhere on the net.
It started with a mexican fan palm, 25 inches high, four inches radius(after being split)

Here it is drawn out. It is leaning against a brick in this picture, but it will freely stand on its own without support.

Face close up

body drawn out

I started at the top and worked my way down. I think that this was the first one that I carved without going back and deepening it again after carving the whole thing. I was finally starting to get it right the first time.

I carved this one flat on the ground using only flat chisels. It was hard not being able to roll the log to work on the edges. It was tougher than I thought to hold and carve it at the same time

This was the first time that I hollowed out the space between the legs and left an open "window" there. Here it is right before final sanding

face close up before sanding

Finished, stained, sitting next to the other half of the log after it was carved and finished

From this adventure I learned:

1. Carving half logs is harder than I figured. I need to devise some sort of log holder to steady the log when I carve on the edges.
2. I'm getting better at realizing how deep each layer of carving should be initially. this cuts down on doing the same area more than once.
3. half logs weigh less than full logs
4. Do not stand up if you have a chisel on your lap that you forgot was there. When it falls, it will land blade first on the bricks and mess up the edge significantly.
5. It is better to drop the chisel on the bricks blade first than it is to drop it on your bare foot blade first.

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-16 10:29 ]

Tiki #19
This one went very quickly. It was a small scale test for a future larger easter Island figure. I had drawn out on paper the cuts I needed to make to form the figure prior to laying this one out. I felt like I had already carved it before I even started it. All the layout challenges were worked out prior to carving it, so the carving itself was easy. This one was made from a Mexican fan palm, two feet 2 inches tall, seven inches in diameter

Here it is just prior to becoming an artifact:

Drawn out

Body drawing detail. I wanted more than just a head so i devised a simple body to go with it.

I carved the thing in one sitting. Here it is after carving:

I used a red mahogany stain. I almost left it like this because I thought it looked neat dull like this.


Here it is with one layer of clear shellac

Here it is with another coat of shellac:

What I learned:

1. In this case, drawing it out on paper first helped me realize the construction of the design
2. I used wood stain for the first time with satisfactory results
3. People are really drawn to this one visually

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-16 10:53 ]

Tiki #20: The other side of the log
Tiki #20 was made from the other half of the log that I used on Tiki #18.

here it is drawn out. I remember thinking that the just the drawing looked good on the log. I had to continue on to see if my carving would ruin the careful planning

Close up of the face:

I started with the dremel to get the fine lines because I did not want to try to do this with the chisels. If I were to do this one today, I would use the gouges that I purchased since then.

next I did the mouth

I sanded any part that was done. This makes it look more finished to me when I do it like this.

Little work on the belly

On to the eyes next

Finished the head: now on to the body.

Most of the body is finished

Burned and stained:

What I learned:

1. To burn or not to burn: That is the tiki making question.
2. Sometimes I do not carve deep enough: this being one of those times.
3. I might hang this on the wall if it is not too heavy.

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-16 11:22 ]

Most of the time my wireless signal is sketchy. the first thing that happens is that shutterfly doesn't work when I have a weak signal or it is too slow and I get crazy mad. It worked tonight so I added as many pictures as I could. I will go back and give the usual long drawn out play by play for these tikis as time permits. I just didn't want you guys thinking I was getting lazy or run out of stories already.

Also...
Thanks for the web advice people. To further explain-I do have the web storage or host space or whatever it's called. I think I have 5000mb and something like 10 email accounts. What I need to know is how to get a website I designed on my laptop onto the space I own under my domain name. Any clues, you guys are definitely getting me on the right track...Or if youre some super programmer person and are interested in a trade situation (my product for your service), PM me and I'll work something out with you
Thanks world, Buzzy.

Xaya: See you soon, Love Buzzy

Man Buzzy, you aren't slowin' down for Nutthin are you. Just keep pumping out these crazy, cool tikis, maybe some of them will fall my way.

Benzart: Funny thing is, I feel the same about you and your stuff. People like you really inspire and push me. thanks always, Buzzy

OOPS! I meant Zaya!

Here are a couple images from Tiki Oasis 6 today:






Most of these came from a vendor and his son who were from Malibu. Based on his example, I think I need to add a 40' diesel crane to my list of carving tools to pick up some day. How come I do not remember any of you guys talking about using yours on the tools thread? Benzart, where do you keep yours? Anyway, I'll have a full report and many more pictures later. Buzzy out!

Buzzy where is the picture of your tikis at Tiki Oasis?

[ Edited by: hiltiki 2006-05-07 20:01 ]

I sold all of them before I could get my camera out. Actually,I cannot find one of three memory discs that I had with me. As I write these very words now, my girlfriend is emailing one she took yesterday, and I'll post it right after I send this.I have a big pile of junk to sort through right now and i'll post my pictures of my ghetto booth when I find them. To hold you over, here is the promotional picture I used for my business cards and "advertising." This was everything that I took the show on Saturday:

I called myself The San Diego Tiki Factory at the show, hence the surfboards. You know-San Diego, the beach, surf culture, that whole thing. Playing it up for the local crowd. All weekend I had ratty old school surf dudes just come up and look at the picture and never even glance at the tikis. It did however, also draw a lot of people over who did stay and talk and look. I think it was a good choice and the best option with my budget of zero.

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-08 00:59 ]

Holy cow Buzzy...those are some incredible tikis...and a lot of 'em too. The guys from Malibu
have some crazy stuff....any idea who they are? Yours are pretty impressive too...did you sell a
bunch?

Malibu man was Zach Zachary . His son carved the largest one. I sold 9, traded one for a ton of glassware, and gave two away. I had a man from Las Vegas want to buy the most expensive one I had there, but I didn't have the means to process a credit card. I talked to Ona later in the day and he said I should have asked someone else if I could use their pos card terminal. Damn! If I only thought of that an hour sooner. It was a $625 mistake. Oh well! I only did this whole thing as a learning experience, and too bad that was a costly lesson to learn. Anyway, it may have a happy ending because he wants me to ship it to Hawaii, to his other house. I asked why he would want to do that with so many Hawaiian carvers there(I assume)and he told me he doesn't like the Hawaiian style and that is what they make there(go figure.) I can only hope he follows through and contacts me later. I'll post my booth pictures when the signal improves and I can get to shutterfly. I've been trying for an hour now...stupid free weak wireless signal...

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-08 01:01 ]

The pictures my girlfriend took were accidently taken at max resolution. they take forever to download. In the interest of saving your valuable time, I took these off the computer screen at low res with my usual camera, that is why they look funny

When you walked into the indoor pavilion through the front door, I was the only tiki guy on the right side. This is your line of sight as you approach my booth from the front door:

Here is the front row. On Saturday, I put the large and costly ones in front for dramatic effect. They were back to back with 6-7 medium ones directly behind them(no picture of those boo-hoo

this was the back row with our hotel supplied table and two chairs

like I said, my booth was ghetto looking. Obviously I didn't win the prize for best decorated booth. I did put up an 8x10 a couple minutes later for my business banner. I will have a lot more to say about this event later.

Buzzy, real nice showing at Oasis. It was good to meet you & put a face with the name. You've been producing tikis fast & furious, and I can only imagine what you will be displaying by next year's Oasis. Keep up the good work!

A-A

My booth at Oasis was right across from painter Adam Kilss' booth. He had some real quality oils and the frames were really neat too. When he was setting up his booth, I checked out how he made his bamboo frames. I was expecting a New Yankee Workshop in scope project, but was surprised to see how easy and logically intuitive the construction process of it was. On Monday, I really wanted to start carving right away, but I lost my mallet somewhere over the weekend. So, instead, I made two frames for a couple of paintings I did a while ago. I noticed how much alcohol consumption, bar accessories, and tiki themed merchandise were all entwined with one another at the show; this is my attempt to create something different than I have been doing to date, but is well within the parameters of the ever broadening realm of the tiki universe

This is an oil on canvas of a neon light restaurant sign in my neighborhood. I made the frames with some giant bamboo that I got from the tree service, based on the ones that Adam Kliss made for his paintings.

This is another painting I did of the the same sign, but I changed the top and bottom to stained wood to use as shelves. In this picture, I threw a couple shot glasses and a wood carving up to show the intent of this design.

My idea was that in a home tiki bar type setting, the first painting would be placed in the dining or sitting area, while the second painting would be behind the bar next to a real neon sign, displaying a shot glass selection. It's like installation art...What next???
I have full step by step photos of making these if anyone cares to see how I did it. It's super easy to do and actually involves some minor carving if you are a detail obssessed freak like myself. Just ask and I'll post them soon.

Buzzy, that's a Nice herd of tiki you have there. Hope you sell/sold them all. What an experience!.

Hughes all the way!

-Gman

Gracias a Paul y Miguel de Rancho por el bamboo.
Today I went to the tree service yard to pick up some bamboo that they had stored for me. While I was there, I noticed that they had moved my logs to a new and convenient spot in the yard. They made it too easy for me, so I brought home some logs with the bamboo.
Here is today's haul:

Looks like lots of good times ahead...
I'd talk more, but look...new logs...bamboo...you understand!
Back to work, (if I ever even actually stop working)...

Lets go, lets go, lets go go go! :) :) :drink:

A few more random tikis from vendors at Tiki Oasis:




the guy carving this was from Tikiland, in San Diego

I just wanted to say I enjoy your posts also because they are so visual.

Dear S.
Right now it is in a cresent moon shape so it will sit flush with the chair


how wide do you want it here? and Do you want it cresent or blocked in shape?

the cresent is seven inches wide at its widest point. How wide do you want this foot rest area to be?
I want to carve a scrunched faced version of the originals face on the front of this. No charge of course. Just let me know if you want it with a face or plain and stained. I'll be ready to go as soon as I hear from Zaya.Thanks,
Buzzy

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-11 15:00 ]

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-11 15:18 ]

S. and C.
Ok. Check it out! Got your message; got your request. Fine, but, I got a big surprise for you guys on this one. It's carving time!!!

Buzzy this looks verrrry interesting....looking forward to seeing more.

Hiltiki:
thanks for your continuing comments and praise. There are a few of you who keep me doing this: you being high on that very list. Since you like the visual aspect of my posts, here's your personal tour of my work area.
Background: My work space fell together with out any plan, piece by piece. After Tiki Oasis, I completely redid my entire work space. When I started carving, I did it under a large tree out back. The tree service trimmed it for me so I had to put up a shade tarp. My old blue tarp was placed for the winter path of the sun and wasn't working well lately. I got a new larger tarp and placed it according to need rather than available space. This tarp project was the center of the overhauling of my whole work area.
Now for your tour:
This is my front yard log storage area. I now have 13 out front, all at least 5 feet in length. I'm always in the process of bringing them in. I started with 23 a few weeks ago.

This is the widest one I have. I already know what I'm going to do with this one; I see it in my head every time I park my car.

To the right of the log pile is a gate. through this gate is my back yard. Watch out for the dog. She is not only a pitbull, but trained in American Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling, Brazillian Ju Jitsu, and the venerable art of Shaolin chuan fa. She is guarding the path to my work area from city workers asking me for a business permit right now.

This is a view of the whole area from the north end of my yard looking south

this is from my work space looking west

I opened and expanded the whole area. Now I have a good view of my work space from my living room. Now when I take a break, I can look at my progress from the couch and formulate my plan of attack in comfort
From my point of view it looks like this:

I hope you enjoyed your tour. I'll post more pictures with you in mind constantly now. Thanks for taking your time to contact me,
your friend Buzzy

I was going to make a three foot log holder for carving based on the big ones that Aarons Akua and Benzart discussed in AA's thread "working with big logs." After I cut it to size, I notice a neat wood pattern under the skin.
The outside looked like this.

I wanted to see what it looked like cleaned up.I took my electric planer and took off 1/32 of an inch
here is what it looks like during this process

here is a close up of the grain. I think it looks beautiful.

here is the whole log cleaned up. It's too nice for a carving stand. It begs to be something beautiful. Now I need another log for a carving stand...

I also have this piece that I cut off before I knew how neat this log looked. I think I will hollow it out and make a good lampshade or a drum.

I sold one of my tikis last weekend because it had a grain like this one does. I know I swore off using this type of log a long time ago, but I'm starting to change my mind. Time and execution will tell...

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2006-05-12 17:03 ]

That's a very beutiful log - I love that grain... yeah that should be a keeper and find some other log for the stand. The chairs/seats are really a cool idea too. Nice work!

Buzzy, that is a real nice view you have looking out into the ocean. Did you built the work space yourself, I think it looks great with the view in the background. Anyways, I like being here because it is interesting and I like your artwork.

Another current project:
It's funny how small a log looks when it is on the ground. I kept wondering why my friend and myself couldn't move this one in our couple of futile attempts.

I decided to try to cut it in half today. It was 5 feet 3 inches, sixteen inches in diameter. I did a bunch of measuring and tore into it Gman style. It turned out pretty good:

The most I was off with the saw was less than the width of a chainsaw blade. Since it worked out so well, I am going to do a thick and tapered log tomorrow with the same method I used on this one. Even after cutting these big ones in half, they're still immense. each half weighs about 170 pounds.

S.
You said "footstool", right?

sanding and staining to go