Yet Still More Zombified Things... (Trader Vic Mask page 2)

It's about time I posted something in this section. So without further Aku... (ah, I crack myself up)...

Here's my first lil' carving post, let's just call him a practice run as I stayed close to the surface of the wood and didn't flesh it out as much as I could have. In retrospect, I also would have chosen a different stain. critisism welcome.

2ft tall, pine

-Z

Thank God The Tiki Bar Is Open
Thank God The Tiki Torch Still Shines...

[ Edited by: Feelin' Zombified 2007-03-06 19:00 ]

[ Edited by: feelin' zombified 2007-03-07 06:22 ]

I'll be the first to say that you've been hiding your stuff for too long. It looks GREAT!
Yes, I would have gone with deeper cuts too, but the cuts you made are very precise, detailed and equal. Not something to scoff at.
I like the stain you chose, it adds character to the piece.
Post more!

That's an excellent first tiki. You should add it to the Marquesas thread.

[ Edited by: FLOUNDERart on 2004-07-31 17:59 ]

Nice work Zombi!!
As a new carver myself, I know how it feels to throw that first creation "out to the wolves" so to speak. But I'd say yours looks great, I like the precision of your shapes as well as the cleanliness of the craft. I'd agree about the stain as I have a problem with the color of my first stain too. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the finishing color might be the toughest thing to plan for ahead of time. I'm learning (the long way) how different woods take differently to stains and finishes.
Keep 'em coming!

Great work from a fellow suburban Detroiter- It reminds me of Martin Denny's tiki drum from the group shot of the band that's on the back of "The Best of Martin Denny" LP. Very nice!

http://www.samgambino.com

Beauty! As mentioned, great cuts! Go deep and you got it! I like that color stain... I use it often.
Have you coated it with anything? (clear Poly?)
You'll find that the color and contrast will change.

Another hint... with shallow cuts you'll notice that the surface wood will stain different than deeper wood. I can see that on your picture and am familier with this as 80% of the wood I carve is pine. Knots will stain differrent too. Make sure you have a even sand all over before you stain for uniformity of stain color. And I've found the more you sand the better grain you bring out. I've gotten some beautiful grain pattern out of pine, even more so when burned lightly with a torch. Try to stain soon after sanding... after a day I've noticed the sanded wood start to darken...

[ Edited by: Lake Surfer on 2004-08-01 01:32 ]

Feelin' Zombified, that’s a great start, heck I’d be happy to have results like that on the 30th carving!
Here is a question that I wanted to ask for a while and since you are just starting out, you may be closer to the "creative start" How did you come up with your design and how did you plan your first few cuts? Those seem to be my biggest hurdles, I have palm logs clean ready to go, but the first few cuts are the hardest. I have tried to "let the wood talk to me" but these logs just mumble, I design and build houses and other structures and have plenty of "Juice" but am missing it here. I thought that it means I am not to carve but I keep finding myself getting logs, cleaning them up and awaking from a rum induced fog holding chisels...should I get professional help or are others with me?

Really looks good FZ. The stain comes out blotchy like that to a lot of us. That is something that will happen to you on certain pieces forever. keep it up and Keep Crackin' us up.

FZ,

Nice work! I am working on my first palm carving right now, & I've been wondering about how I should stain the tiki. I noticed that different areas on the fan palm are differently colored - yellow/grey/tan at surface, whiter below, then slightly reddish about a half inch down.

Oh, well - there's one way to find out! I must say, I've been carving that AAC material, and actual wood is quite a bit harder to carve.

Keep on carvin' and keep on postin' my friend! Great work!

Aaron

Nice work!! Finally a carver in my own back yard! Dig deep with those chisels!

Matt

A sweet starter for sure! I just finished my first 2 pieces this weekend and will start a thread later with some pics. I like your design a lot and I agree with you that carving deeper next time will be better. I had the same experience with mine. Keep going cause you seem to have the talent.

Thanks everyone for your kind words and lack of insults :)

If I can ever find more wood, I'll keep the woodchips flying... seriously, you'd think in the wild kingdom that is Michigan, wood would grow on trees, but I've tried every lumber place, big & small, been refered to sawmills that never answer the phone or have an address, and have had no luck with tree trimmer co's. I just so happened to get that piece from my inlaws (a 15 foot tree and only a 2ft section that was straight)

On 2004-08-01 12:38, bananabobs wrote:
How did you come up with your design and how did you plan your first few cuts?

As far as design, I flipped thru BOT several times and studied our own BK's carvings (which I think are amazing). I sketched a design on a huge piece of tracing paper, deconstructed the sketch down to its simplist elements with a black Sharpie, and transfered the image to the log the slowest and most agonizing way I could think of... pin holes in the paper every cm or so and retraced with the Sharpie, bleeding thru to the wood. Then just connect the dots on the wood:

As far as the first cut, pick a spot, take a deep breath and hope for the best.

-Z

What do you do when you are given 4 pieces of bamboo, each approx. 1 foot long, finished, and the ends are plugged because they came from a window hardware display?

Tune in this weekend and find out :D

-Z

(I had intended to post the final pics today, but the camera is elsewhere... OK, another hint: 4ft and 4 1/2ft poles were used also)

Thank God The Tiki Bar Is Open
Thank God The Tiki Torch Still Shines...

[ Edited by: Feelin' Zombified 2005-09-22 18:21 ]

Id probly carv sumthin in them and make them into drink resepticles... cant wait what your gonna doo with um...

Good work, Zombie..that's a great first tiki. Do you have a deep gouge (curved chisel) to work with? If you'll be at Hukilau I'll show you some cool Marquesan tricks...just oddball digs. Keep it up..

Yeah, I can't wait to see what you will do with the bamboo....

OK,

so as I was saying, I had these 4 pieces of bamboo that were about 1 foot each, plus a 4ft and a 4 1/2 foot pc.

and after thinking about a table or a bar back or other various uses, I thought I'd build a place for my stuff. Mrs. Zombified didn't appreciate my mugs taking over her Wedgwood collection shelves, so I thought I'd make a proper place. A little love and affection for my mug collection :)

First I glued some tight weave lauhala to the MDF, both of which were cut to size...

Next, I glued a piece of fabric to the backing board (also MDF) excuse the mess in the basement

Then, using the idea from the PAD book series, I used 3/8th inch threaded rod through the bottom shelf and began building upward.

Hansel the UberSchnauzer made sure everything was level... (for precise German engineering)

worked my way up to the top

and then started on the detail work. This is the wide seagrass braid from Oceanic Arts, used for the face edge.

Jute wrapped around the bamboo where it meets the lauhala

and,

the finished product...

well, that's it.

Now that it's finished I can finally post something in the "Show me your mugs" thread. Until then, here's a sneak preview of it in action

Lastly, I could really use 2 more. I'll still have to use part of my wife's space. :lol: which is fine with me because since I have no official tiki room in the house, this shelf has to stay in a dark, dank corner of the basement.

The End.

-Z

Thank God The Tiki Bar Is Open
Thank God The Tiki Torch Still Shines...

[ Edited by: Feelin' Zombified 2005-09-23 20:55 ]

You've been holding out on Tiki Central FZ! Very nice! If you don't have room for it, you can always store it at Hulaville, really it would be totally ok :wink: I love the fabric on the back, can you reveal your source or is it a secret? I have a shelf kind of like it but smaller, made using the instructions from the book of PAD. Sadly most of my bamboo pieces have begun to split. I bet you wrapping the ends might keep it from splitting and it looks bitchen to boot! Thanks for sharing! ...yea, I said bitchen to boot... :P

[ Edited by: DawnTiki 2005-09-23 21:47 ]

YEEOOWW! that's cool. Very nicely done shelf, I'm sure your mugs are happy that they have a place they can call home. I especially like the addtion of the jute and sea grass braid. Now, to get it out of the basement....or build a tiki bar around it!

NIce job!

feelin' bamboozled!

excellent work, my friend ~

Great Job FZ! Nice to see the finished project. Gotta love that fine German engineering.

That looks soooo nice! It looks easy to do too, so you may see something like it in my basement before to long. :D Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the kind words everyone. It was rather easy... the least fun and most tedious part is cutting out the lauhala (11 pieces) to match the shelf size and shape. From my experience, I'd say it's better for the matting to stop short in the back (by 1/16 of an inch or so) and overhang in the front by a smidge; everything fit better on shelves that were glued that way.

Oh yeah, I used 3M Super 77 on the matting and the fabric, which so far is holding up well.

Dawn, the fabric is from Hawaiian Fabric in the Barkcloth section, but I see that they only have it in blue right now. So I'm not sure if it's out of stock or discontinued. Also, I should mention that the bulk of the weight of each shelf is not on the bamboo, it's on washers & nuts that were about flush with the top of the bamboo rods... so hopefully there won't be any splitting or crushing.

:drink:

-Z

Thank God The Tiki Bar Is Open
Thank God The Tiki Torch Still Shines...

[ Edited by: Feelin' Zombified 2005-09-24 13:09 ]

Man thats a great shelf . Thanks for posting great step by step photo's.

Sweet set of shelves. Real nice execution

Wow! I love that shelf! Gives me some great ideas!

You must be feeling pretty great instead of Zombified after such a Nice creation. Thanks for the step by step shots showing us how we can make our very own FZ Shelf. Nice job and it's the little details that set it off. Well Done!

Thanks again for the kind comments. My only regret with it is now that it's finished I have to make a (very non-Tiki) headboard for the bedroom... I'd much rather have another bamboo related project. Maybe if I find a Ren Clark Severed Head at the Salvation Army I could afford to build a matching bar :)

-Z

alright...

more crap I made...

the end

That shelf system looks perfect for the display, very creative, nice one.
Regards
Flynny

That is my favorite logo, nice job. What about a close up view? How tall is the mask?

JP

I like the Mask with spears! cool, cool, cool.... do you take orders?

Amy

More Nice stuff FZ. Don't stop now!

Yo, Zombie...the shelf and TV mask/spear piece are top notch.. Great stuff. Keep the good shit rollin' ..fB

Lovin it alll!
You're so danged creative, I need to get my butt in gear.

Love the work your doing! The Trader Vic carving turned out great also the mug shelf was a great idea!

On 2007-03-08 15:37, JohnnyP wrote:
What about a close up view? How tall is the mask?

as requested...

JohnnyP... the mask is about 21 inches tall with a wingspan of 37.5

thanks again for the kind comments everyone...

-Z

Thank God The Tiki Bar Is Open
Thank God The Tiki Torch Still Shines...

[ Edited by: feelin' zombified 2007-03-12 18:22 ]

Wow, those are a Lot bigger than I thought. "Other Stuff" Very well done sir.

I love the TV replica! Great work, the colors look so vibrant!

Here I am looking over the thread and seeing all of your wonderful artwork and shelving and then I see THE MUG I have been searching for for years. The Mauna Loa Drum mug. I've wanted one for Dan's collection forever. Someday if you need to downsize and want to sell it. Or if you have an extra please let me know, Wendy