Loki and Stump Grinder: 5-11-08 Koru style wall hanging

Loki, He's looking great, and I LOVE the teeth!

Nice looking tiki so far Loki. I agree with the others about how cool it is to work with the wahine. It doesn't get any better than that. Thanks for the safety tips too. I put one in a recent thread also... with so many new people trying buiding and carving stuff it really helps to be reminded or learn from others mistakes. Keep it up and keep the progress pics coming!

Either way, you escaped blood free
HappyZHappyHappy

Hey Loki,

Sorry to hear you had a close call...glad to hear you are ok though. One has to watch the power tools. They are good a removing lots of wood, but will also remove anything else they come in contact with.

Your big man is looking real good. Taking it slow and thinking out each step is the best way to figure it out, learn cool techniques, and not kill your carving. He looks real strong and I can't wait to see more updates and watch him come alive. Looks like he stands fairly nicely now. Nice.

I like what you did with the little ficus tiki. I'm glad you guys are enjoying him....I enjoyed making him for you. I can't wait to get back over your way for another jam session. If you see more of that mahogany, coconut, or ficus, snatch it up for me PLEASE!

-Gman

Ok gang, a little update in Loki's world.

Remember that patu? I havent touched it in a long time and finally picked it up again. I think i finally have the shape i like and have have finished drawing out the face design. I will be inlaying some Paua shells i brought back from NZ in it and I'm waiting for a few new toolz to properly carve the designs, so it still has a bit to go.

The big Marq is slowly making headway. I cut the eyes this weekend after a big debate with myself over the design. Of course when carving starts, the design changes a bit again. Both eyes are rough cut and still need a little love. One lesson learned. Working on a large piece is a different ball game. This guy is so big that just moving him around makes for extra time and set up. I know its taking forever, but he really is a big boy.

Lady Loki, AKA Stump Grinder, her new name as of the Tiki Jam...finished her second tiki, dubbed Robert De Niro...he really did look like him before his final stain. she was not pleased with this tiki, but has learned some lessons and got more carving time. I think he's pretty cool.

Her moai mask got a little work too. I really think this is the coolest piece we have so far. The pics dont give it the porper respect. This is a really cool piece in person. Hang in there for the final on this one.

Alright...thats it for now. Remember to CARVE SAFE and have FUN.

"He who does anything because it is the custom makes no choice."

[ Edited by: Loki 2006-01-23 09:41 ]

Loki and Stump Grinder,

That is some solid work. The Marq looks great, the moai is super, and Robert looks way cool. Keep us updated and carve safe. I would hate to have to start calling you "Lefty".

Oh, and thanks for the wood....I replied to you on my thread,

-Gman

The marq is coming along so very nice. I am a little jealous of the green grass and all the outdoor shots. Now if only I could convincemy wife to give up shopping and start carving...

Thanks GMAN.
I did get your message about the wood. Its out side, stacked with a tent tarp over it so they can breath and not touch the ground.

Rodeo, yeah the weather is probably better than what you have, but its muggy and humid, so that makes carving less fun. I cant wait to get this big guy done. I have so many more on the list.

Thanks again for checking in guys.

Dang, these are looking really great. I really do dig the big guy, he just keeps getting better. And I'm quite a fan of the Denerotiki. Thanks for the pics!

wow loki, nice marq!

Loki and StumpGrinder, you guys are really going to town. Loki yours is really beginning to develop character and is looking very precise, and Stumpgrinder, give yourself more credit. That first tiki is really good and the moai is getting there too. Post More pictures, Soon.
Thanks.

On 2006-01-23 12:54, Loki wrote:
yeah the weather is probably better than what you have, but its muggy and humid, so that makes carving less fun.

As much as I hate to admit it, I do more carving in the winter than the summer for just that reason. Still, I think I could put up with it for a few days (or a lot more than a few days) :)

Your carvings look great. The mask looks like it will have a lot of personality.

JP

Aloha loki!!!!!!!!!
Your tiki is looking Great my friend! Looks like you have been slaying the wood and having fun(glad the power tool incident worked out on the good side for you)Be careful my friend but keep having fun! Sorry i missed the jam i had to work at the fire dept that weekend, but ill try to make it next time! It looked like alot of fun, but the way i hack my friend we might need a pressure washer for the neiborhood to clean the houses(my wife says i'm a little bit messy-and of corse i stated with but honey i'm a boy and boys make messes)it diddnt work! Keep slaying, aloha for now, Mooney

Loki and StumpGrinder,

Where's the update for Saturday. I know you two have the Foredom set up and that you are going crazy with it down there. We need to see what you're up to. Don't hold out on us.......!

-Gman

Cool pictures.

Sorry for the late update pics.
I was in Daytona this past weekend watching the 24 Hour race, and this little guy was begging to watch the races with me. Just a scrap piece of white pine and a hook knife. Thought i would start carving something small while smelling brake dust, burning petrol and drinking too many beers.

After this little Tang got home, he needed to get the racing grime sanded off...still a work in progress, but i couldn't take the big Marq with me.

Stump Grinder was busy on the moai mask. Caution, Wahine ahead with fire. Now thats hot!

Mr. Moai gets his first bath of stain.

This moai mask is my favorite. The pics do it no justice. Great job my wahine.

HelzTiki stopped by this weekend with his wahine and contributed enough TV syrups to the bar to last a few Tiki Jams. Thanks so much. Now, you have to help us drink them.

More updates to come, and remember, CARVE SAFE!

The tang is of to a nice start, was it hard changing scales from the bigger stuff you've made?

I like the torce effect on the mask

So when is the next SoFlo Tiki Jam?
JP

Loki, I Really love your little tang, lot of work for just a hook knife. Watch those hook blades I think they are decendants of mosquitoes, they Love blood and will bite when you aren't looking.
StumpGrinder I Love your moai. I think he is turning out fantastic for,what your 3rd or 4th tiki. Can't wait til you get a few more under your belt.
Also I Really love your nickname "Stump Grinder" when are you going to make it official and bjoin with your own identity? Although you and Loki are doing so well together, there are So Few married teams carving so keep what you got!.

JP, thanks for the props on the lil tang...i really didnt find it difficult to work small...but i must confess, i have been studying some of Benz Tangs for reference, but dont tell him :wink: ...

Benz, ignore what i wrote JP... :lol:
Actually, i fear and respect the hook, but you gotta try it to learn how it works. I'm such a noob, that i need to get as much hands on as possible. With regard to the tang, what tool are you using for adding facial lines to yours? I finally got the cheapie flexshaft and Foredom #50 handpiece, but i think it still may be to large for that fine of a line.

Yep, it sure is great carving with the wahine. We have totally let the house go, because our weekends are consumed with log collecting and carving. We arent that good, but we sure do have lots of fun doing this together and thats what its really all about.

Hey, I LOVE the profile of the little guy! Can't wait to see how the small stuff comes out. And the Moai is amazing. Hard to believe that he could look better than when we got to see him in person, but sure enough, he's even more spectacular!

I'm just thrilled that I get to see some of this great stuff first hand, because like you said, the pics don't really do them justice. They're even better in real life.

I'm looking forward to messing up your driveway again soon.

Loki, what I am using are small cylinder burrs in the 1 to 3 mm range and then diamond's to clean it up. That is depending on which one you are looking at. If I remember right those mini tangs I did were all super hard wood that took all power tools. I didn't use the hook at All..All rotary power!
Keep up the good work. You guys have the bug pretty bad. You are lucky in a way. Usually it is the husband that ignores all his chores and gets a big fight started, but with Both of you letting the house go, Who Cares, Right?? Welcome to the world of the Tiki Carvers disease.

Weekend update.
The Kotiate is finally finished. I inlaid paua shells brought back from New Zealand. They have a nice green glow to them, different from the abalone we have here in the US. It was my first time working with inlay. Not an easy task especially with the wood i used. I didn't have a nice piece of wood so i used a white pine table top bought cheap at a do it yourself store. Thanks BK for the idea. The only problem with using this wood is its pressed together with layers. When i was adding the decorative lines the wood had a tendency to grab when i came across a new layer. It also made cutting out the inlay holes a bit more difficult. The stain is Red Mahogany from Minwax. Anyway, here is the final product, minus the wrist lanyard.

Worked on the big Marq a little bit. Look at those huge pectoral muscles. What a stud. Didn't get to work on him as much as i wanted to, but at least he is drying out nicely.

StumpGrinder is really on a tear. The Moai mask is complete. He got a mix of Country Pine and Red Mahogany Minwax stain.

Next up is a ficus log. A wayward branch is turning out to be a nice tongue. She really made mad progress with this guy. This is only a few hours of work. I know she has been designing him in her head all week, so she had a good plan. Suddenly, talent rains down on the Stump Grinder. Shes putting me to shame. :lol:

Working with the Foredom #50 reciprocating hand piece makes easy work for teeth.

Working with the ficus is very different from the palms we are used to. She actually perfers the ficus.

Thanks for looking and for all the positive comments. It really helps keep us going.
Aloha for now.

The inlay work makes that club and the Moai mask looks great in it's home. Stumpgrinder's plan for the branch came together really well. I am looking forward to seeing how that finishes up.
JP

Way to go guys! The moai looks great all finished up; the Speed-Tang looks like a great start; the Marq is definitely coming along nicely; and, the new ficus tongue tiki is way kool.

Loki, I agree with GMAN, the Marq is gonna be Killer, the Club IS a Killer, the Tang is really raelly neat. Loki the Moai turned out great. I'm glad you like the ficus, it used to be one of my favorite carving woods. hat ficus tiki you have going on there is really fantastic.
I see you got the Foredom Recip carver and it looks like you have learned to use it pretty quickly. Both of you are doing great stuff, can't wait to come to the next Jam...

Loki, Stump Grinder... WOW. Great work! And here I figured you wouldn't be carving this past weekend because the weather was so off. I've got to grab my three craftsman chisels and my hunk of palm and drag them over one of these days...

So what's been going on down there lately? Any more progress?
JP

JP,
House projects have taken over the weekends for a while. I have a few new pending projects roughed out, but need to know they are going to work out before i post pics...could be a bunch of fire wood. Going to be traveling this month but i promise to get my arse in gear and post ASAP. Thanks for the faith. We will be carving real soon.

Loki and Stumpgrinder.

Alright gang, its been a long time since a post. However, we have been very busy. The west side of our house had a serious water drainage problem. Last year we dug up the old weed infested sod and threw new sod. The problem was with the new sod, the soil became like an impervious barrier and would not allow water to drain. The moisture problem caused the grass to die and left 4 inches of the non draining soil. Long story, we dug a massive french drain, channeled the water away from the house and put in gutters. End of water problem. The next task was landscaping an area that would not grow grass. So, we designed a plan that elimanated all sod and used hard scaping instead, along with plant beds that would be mulched with pine nuggets or stones. Being that we have a collection of tikis, we thought we'd use them as features along the path. The tiki gardern was born. Currently is has a few tikis Stumpgrinder and i made and a GMAN tiki made during the South Florida Tiki Jam. We have some lighting in there but we are going to be redoing it this weekend to really make it pop. It looks amazing at night, so hopefully i will have some new pics to share next week. These are just a few teazer photos.

We are also resodding the rest of the yard, and removing the existing sod is quite a task and eats into our weekends. Thankfully, Helztiki and AlohaStation gave us some motivation to start carving again. We will be posting some new tikis real soon. We really enjoyed working on this project together and are most pleased with the turn out. Keep checking in for the better pics and the night shots. Thanks for looking.

Nice Loki. Where's the bar? I don't see the bar.

Wow! Great getaway there! If it weren't for the swamp u never would have gotten a tiki garden. Way to make the lemons into lemonade, and by the way, nice tikis.

ST

Loki,

That looks great! Nice job man! If I remember correctly, it matches the boardwalk/deck at the very back of the Florida room now? I likee :)

Now we just need better pics of that fab Gman tiki!!! :lol:

-Gman

Nice work, Loki & StumpGrinder. The dry rock bed really works.

Really looking forward to hanging with both of you really soon. :)
C'mon Tiki Jam

As promised, new lighting and new pics at night. We are 90% finished with the tiki garden and as new tikis are aquired we'll add them to their new home. Spent most of the weekend putting in a new sprinkler system and messing with sod, but also got some more work on the never ending Marq.

These are some of the new lighting we put in. They are a brand called Malibu and we found them at one of the big home improvment stores. They can use 4 or 11 watt bulbs depending on mood. And we also installed 35 watt spots to highlight the tikis.

The pond is a 60 gallon pre formed resovior. We made the fountain out of copper pipe and flat landscaping pavers by drilling holes through them and attaching the copper pipe to them, allowing water to trickle off the top of the rocks. We used rail road ties to surround the pond and then then landscaped around to make it seem likes its been there forever. We actually did the pond months ago, but it was part of the master plan for the tiki garden.

Finally the Marq has some legs to stand on. I really took away a lot of wood and I'm doing most of it with hand chisels so its taking a long time, but i am starting to get the look i want. I finally feel an end in sight for this guy.Still more depth in some places, but he's starting to come along. I have a ton of new ideas just ready to go, but i want to finish him up first.

Thanks for looking.

Wow , thanks for giving me a case of yard envy again. Theres some great ideas you guys have come up with , like the fountain. And as for the marq , the longer you take the better he will be. Its coming along beautifully.

Yes, yes indeedy. That's good stuff! I love the lights and new planting. Top shelf, all around. The Marq is looking good, time to finish him up and start on that Lono! Better get sanding.....

-Gman

Loki, That Marq is really coming along great. I like the legs a lot. And what can I say about your gardens but fabulous. From seeing it first hand, and knowing that the pics can't do it justice, it must look absolutely incredible at night. I'm just looking forward to seeing the Marquesan back there.

Loki, your Marq is turning into one Serious Tiki and is looking Great. I Absolutely Love your new tiki garden. It is starting to look a bit like the MaiKai and I too am developing a spot of "Yard Envy". You guys are doing a Wonderful job on your place.
ONLY 17 More days to GO...Can't wait.

Thanks for all the positive comments everyone. It has been a labor of love and a necessary task to keep the water out of the house. We just embellished it a bit with the tiki garden. We cant wait to see how it evolves once the plants grow and more tikis are added or how it will hold up in another hurricane...ya gotta make light of that living down here....

Benz, it does remind me of an ultra mini slice of the Mai-Kai garden and the water feature really gives it a great relaxing sound. We spend so much of our time outside that it has become another room to the house. We cant wait to host the Tiki Jam in a couple of weeks and look forward to seeing the South Florida Ohana again.

Now where did i leave my chisels?

I have some small pieces of Florida Mohogany and wanted to try a small desktop tiki with a strict time limit of no more than 3 hours. He is far from a traditional tiki but was fun to work on. Even these little guys take a lot of time. My point in this lesson, is to learn the tools better and to speed up production. I still have a long way to go on both accounts. However, as long as the chips are flying the lessons are being learned.

The plaque in the background is the official South Florida Tiki Jam 2 sign. Each participant hopefully will add to it and we will finish is at the end of the jam. It will have a little style from all the carvers who attend the Tiki Jam.

More coming soon. Thanks for looking.

Loki, Nice tiki, Especially for 3 hours. That seems to be a great way to get familiar with all your tools. The time limit forces you to be resourceful and find better, quicker ways to remove wood and Thats what it's all about.
NINE DAZE :)))

Wow, I really like the smaller guy. Especally the eyes, brow and head. It's a great style. I can really appreciate you pushing yourself to improve your craft, and it's quite inspiring.

Glad to see that you are carving again. Three hour turned out nice and the plaque is a really neat idea. Wish I could be there for Jam No.2.
JP

Guess who wants to say "Hi"....finally?

Golf ball head is finally finished...less his poly coats...he has been a long time in the making, but I'm happy with the results. Far from perfect, but a great lesson. I can tell the difference from when I started him months ago, to the final cuts recently, that I've got a little better eye and my cuts are improving. While he in not completely traditional, he does have some elements that are true and some special loki elements...well not special, but experiements...

His color is called Deep Ebony. At first I almost stopped and went with a lighter color, but the darker deep chocolate brown makes him look bold and I think it works.

Thanks for checking in on this never ending tiki...Rodeo...do i get the trophy for the longest carving?




Just before his stain...

More projects are coming...hang in there.....

[ Edited by: Loki 2006-04-20 07:57 ]

[ Edited by: loki 2006-04-21 04:54 ]

Loki, Marc the Golfer looks wonderful. You are right the dark stain adds to it. Be sure to show us pics of it in the new garden.
Now what are you going to do next?
JP

Loki, this guy is Sweet! I Really love the stain and the head dimples are really neat. Very Well done. Can't wait to see this guy in person.

He looks great. I love the color - it will look really rich when you get the poly on. After all the time you put in on hime do you have a special place of honor for him?

Nice work Loki... clean and crisp.

Marqs are my favorite and you've captured all the best of one!