New stuff added!!

Excellent priorities there Brother!

Have an awesome holiday season!

Mahalo!

McTiki

Dude
U lucky
My pool is 51 degrees right now

nice work tom.....and your staining skills are amazing. i have to get off my ass and start carving again.......thanks for putting inspiration out there. your works always wonderful to see

nice bro...those new ones are lookin' good...

Enjoying some time off and have been busy. This one needed to be finished before sending it off to its new home,

Swap piece done and few quick new carves - pics soon.

awesome

The lono was an experiment in hiding a face in a face (inspired by LLT's drawings). Do you see it?

A recent discussion on another thread about paint - these peiecs the petina is painted not burnt.

Nice, Tom! I like that tone on the body. Sort of an olive-tone judging by the pics?

Kool stuff Tom!

More progress on some tikis for the Indy Craft Swell. Its a local show right here on A1A. Last year I had a great spot right on the road. Still have a few more things to wrap up. The weather is supposed to be in the 70's, water temp is about the same!

https://www.islandwatersports.com/blogs/indie-craft-swell-2/
http://www.islandwatersports.com/index.php/surf-home/surf-report

More new stuff.

Carved in Royal Poinciana about 13" tall. The picture does not do the color justice - bright yellow with black stripes.

Nice Tom! Is Royal Poinciana the wood it's carved from or the place it was carved at?

Me like

Nice Aloha, that last one has a great shape.

It never occurred to me that South Florida carvers have access to some unusual woods that people in other parts of the country wouldn't see. All sorts of tropical stuff.

AlohaStation, maybe you could give some more specifics on what the poinciana wood is like and how well it worked for carving.

This was a fresh cut piece when I carved it. Every blow of the mallet forced a drop of water out of the wood. Carved well when wet - I did not do any detail. It sat in my unfinished box for a while to dry out. I recently picked it up and finished carving the details and clean up. I would compare it to a tightly packed palm - stringy but willing to accept some massaging. WillCarve has the rest of this piece - its big! The best thing about the poinciana is the color, pics just don't do it justice. It is a bright yellow with black streaks - gorgeous!

Nice Moai,cool style-i like!

Very nice! Strong shapes show off the grain...

With some extra time on my hands I started a few new things in Palm. Still wet and needing to dry.

Tang Mask

Smaller Tiki Skull mask

The masks are nice, but who carved the gnarly feet? :lol: Not to mention you're wearing flipflops while the rest of us are freezing our asses off!
Great work as always Tom, glad to see you're keeping busy making art.

I like the new masks...that skull masks big brother is very cool in person...

and hey, hope things are goin' well...

I'll be back around in a few weeks...

the Tang mask is looking interesting too...

Inspired by WillCarve I started this project. More soggy palm - I hollowed out the inside and will probably add a light. Still very wet and needs to dry.

It all looks great. Looking forward to seeing these finished!

Some nice projects you have going there. I'd love to try my hand on some of that palm. Do you guys ever use Mexican Fan Palm? That's about all we have around here.

A nice start Aloha!

Mexican Fan palm is what the guys in Cali use. We have too many varieties down here to try and positively identify what I'm using.

Wow - I've been gone for a while and need to give an update. Lost my job in Feb and have found new gameful employment close to home. While my focus has been becoming re-employed, I have started a few new projects and finished others. I'll start with one that I started. Will found some chunks of what appears to be Date Palm(??) and shared a few pieces with me. I dove right in and carved a head out of one chunk. I found the bark easily peeled off and the wood underneath to be extremely wet. That didn't stop me - I carved the full face in about 2 nights. I would compare it to carving a wet apple - it took sharp edges and was easy to shape. Of course once I was done it would have to dry and I let it sit a few days. Cracks started immediately and the following image is what it currently looks like. The small face on top completely shreaded - it will have to be redone. Should I try salvaging or just move on?

Tom, good to hear from you - I was starting to get worried. Congrats on new job! Good to see you carving and posting again, good luck carving that apple :D

that is annoying as hell when it just starts crumbing...

Hey Tom- good luck with the new job! That soft palm looks really good so far; even with the top as shredded as it is. I'd like to see it after some more drying time. I have two 4' logs of what might be big Christmas palm or something very similar. I've had them sitting in my car port for a couple years now. I suppose it's time to dig into one and see what happens!

Welcome back! Awesome that you found work so close to home. (I drive 2 hrs per day)

Buzz that thing off the top and pursue the rest as you have started. Looks great!

McTiki

I dove back into the log and it is still soaking wet. I hope to salvage this one by using the cracking to my advantage?? There is still another big chunk starin me down in the garage!

McT - I drove an hour each way (into the heart of rush hour) every day for 9 years. This week I only burned 1/4 tank of gas!! Waiting for the rain to stop, so I can ride my bike.

Thats awesome! I.just bought a porker for daily driver...but it sure makes it fun.

McTiki

[ Edited by: mctiki 2013-05-06 07:17 ]

Congrats on the new job! Made a big difference for me when I was able to start working close to home.

So this one dried and I decided to finish it. The log started out round, the carving is a little less than round after drying. I love this one. This started out in my head as hanging from chain, but it sits so nice (that option is still open). Another version coming soon - I have just the right chunk of wood for the next one.

Nice work Aloha!

When I was commuting, I always thought that was such a waste of time. Hopefully you will get more carving in now.

So I recently found some time to start my next project. I've had some mahogany logs on the side of my house that have been calling to me. After attending The Hukilau, I had been inspired and was ready to dig in. I had just the log!

After a few sessions the chips were starting to to fly.

and my carving was starting to take shape. Not tiki - but still in the same genre. The fun part of just digging in and roughing it out is over, I've started on some of the refinements. Keeping my fingers crossed that I don't f*ck it up.

lookin' good Tom.. I dig it...

Looking forward to watching this one progress. It's kind of hard to make out in the photo but what are you using for a workbench?

Nice! Great start and looking forward to watching this progress. I'm guessing ships head!!

How's carving the mahogany? Your lines look really clean, are you using chisels only?

My carving stand is a little improvised but i like it. It is a 4 position folding ladder with palm segments for cushion. I'm tall and like my logs positioned higher. The mahony is tough to carve in raw logs, the grain swirls and changes direction alot. I'm used to it now and try to keep that in mind when planning my cuts. Yes, all chisels w/grinder to sand (the wood laughs at the grinder). Heres the latest...

haha love the bench! Looks like this is going to be very cool.

Lookin good

Wood carving porn

Here's the latest. She is progressing nicely. I keep telling myself "doing good, don't f*ck her up" - so things are progressing slowly.

Very nice.

I found the key - I make sure I f*** mine up early and get it out of the way, then I don't have to worry about it for the rest of the carve.