Palama Tiki: What I Did on my Easter Vacation

In between other 'homework assignments' I managed to get these two projects finished. this is tiki #3 roughed out...

at this stage, he sat drying in my garage for 2 weeks while i worked on other projects; as i carved into him this weekend, he turned out to be a wet stringy mess; like carving into a spaghetti squash. then i remembered the blowtorch... and all was well with the world.

This is him after many torch & sand iterations... with apologies to KreepyTiki..

i hollowed out his head, since it was a stringy mess...

and after a coat of polyurethane...

his new home at the lake...

I also carved a pedestal out of pine (hurricane wood); i'm going to carve a full-body tiki to place on the pedestal.

i copied a Disney design for the pedestal that i've seen at the Polynesian resort and also in front of the new Tiki room at Disneyland; of course it doesn't look as good as the Disney work, but i do like carving the pine. no strings!

Thanks for looking...

[ Edited by: Palama Tiki on 2005-03-28 06:48 ]

Nice work. I just gave up on a log that had stringyness when cut into. Sabal & Coca (for me) seem to be the woodiest! How big is that pine column? It looks great!

Keep carving. You did great!

Mahalo!

Thanks McTiki.. I appreciate your kind words...

i'd like to try different types of palms, but i'm trying to use up the queen logs that i have. we have alot of downed pine at work, so i'll be carving more of that as well.

the pine pedestal is roughly 2 feet high by 1.5 feet wide. that was my first time carving anything other than palm, and it was really nice working with it.

thanks again!

Excellent tiki, especially for only # 3, and the pedestal looks great too. I Love how you hollowed out the headdress on the tiki, looks super. You will find pine a great working wood compared to palm. palm is soft and quick and easy to carve if you don't want a lot of detail. If you want detail, you go to the pine or other hardwoods. They take longer to carve but show greater detail and last many years longer.
Can't wait for # 4.

Thank you Ben. i'm looking forward to #4 as well...! i'd like to do a Marq or something along that line in the pine; really try to work in the detail.

I hope you are feeling better!

Great job! I, too, love the headress. He looks right at home in the landscaping, too.

Thanks Beachin! hollowing out the headdress was the first time that i ever 'finessed' a chainsaw cut.