Carvings by Louie the Fish!

Aloha Ya'll from sunny Honolulu!
I am new to this site so thought I might try to post some pics of the sort of carving I have been doing to earn a crust for the past 38 years. There is an Opah or Moonfish in gold pearl shell, an Albatross with pearl beak and feet, an assortment of my fish pendants including a famous Hawaiian Tiki form, the Lei Niho Palaoa, and an assortment of my fishhook replicas, with a Rarotongan black pearl hook and a Tahitian Gold pearl hook in the center, plus bone, black jade and green jade Hawaiian hooks. My website at http://www.louiethefish.com has a lot more pics, and soon it will have a whole new look. I like carving fish most of all. All the work pictured is mostly sold, but I have a stock of all types of hooks and make anything else on commission. I sell my bone fish for $ 100, and hooks range from $ 40 to over $100. I posted other pics in the Ohana Tiki area also. Hope you all like the work!
Tightlines, Louie

Incredible!
Keep posting!

Haven't seen your site yet, but this is really nice stuff you posted. Let's see some more. How about some works in progress?

I really like your work! Welcome to TC and please keep posting photos of what you make.

Much Aloha!

Beautiful work - those hooks look deadly and fully functional! The wildlife studies are spot-on too, in particular the albatross. It sounds like you've already lived my dream or travelling the Pacific, carving as you go. Your site says you were in Pago Pago, but your profile and post say Hawaii now?
I'd love to get some tips on carving pearl shell if you have time...

Alright Louie! Ya made it to the party!!! Put your fez on and join right in! I guess Benz n' I got the password thing worked out. Sweet.
Like BigT said, we LOVE to see some progress photos. What"s on the table now? :D

Kia ora Louie - welcome to TC!

Beautiful work! No prizes for guessing how you earned your name; your fish are superb. But those green makau are what catch my eye..

Someone added a link to your carving demo on You-Tube just a week or so back & was thinking of modelling a set-up after the one you were working at. - please excuse a young pup, but you really should wear a dust-mask! Health first when teaching others..

I hope you enjoy your time at TC. Your work will be greatly admired!

Luiethefish, welcome to TC. Your work is amazing, so perfect with such clean lines, I love it.

Hey Louie,
I'm Glad you made it over to the Tiki Carving playground. Many more people will see your Beautiful stuff here than in the Ohana pages. I'm Really turned on by the different MOP pieces, that Moon fish looks like he is just swimming by Great stuff, now to get you onto the MArketing page.
I guess it was you who sent the "Black Bart" to My Space? Thanks,

Very nice work :D

Aloha Ya'll!

Someone asked about carving in pearl shell. First off you'll need a decent flex shaft outfit, like a Foredom, as that stuff will wear out tools. Getting large thick pearl shells is also difficult. You want ones 5-6 inches across or bigger if you want to carve fat fish, etc, and even then you only get really thick material near the hinge. after drawing my design on a sanded surface of shell, I use a Hacksaw with those round wire blades that cut in any direction to roughly cut out the shape, allowing outside room to carve down later. I also use my cheap table band saw, with 3/8 wide blades, which wear out fast on shell. I save those blades just for shell, as they will burn bone after shell cutting. I then use my double ended grinder with a 80 grit hard sanding disc to rough out more of the shape, then move over to the Foredom, and use a large cylinder (3/16 diameter) Tungsten carbide burr, to do almost all the shaping, also using other burrs for detailing. On hooks I use the small stone cones for inside curves. You can also use the Dremel burr # 115, and other Dremel burrs like # 117, but they wear out sooner. Whatever I am doing with shell, I have a fan to my left and wear a dust mask.
After shaping as much as possible with burrs, I sand and shape further with Adalox Coarse Snap-on discs in the handpiece, or I make my own sanding discs by hot gluing a 1 inch square of 320 wetdry paper to the head of a nail, then put it in the handpice, spin it, and use a razor knife to cut it into a disc. This makes a very supple small disc that is great for very fine sanding, but wears out very fast. Make lots!
Finally I use knife edge cutter to draw lines on fines etc, hnad sand it with 320 or finer, inlay the eyes, and polish on the left hand side of my grinder with white rouge.
I hope that helps.......Happy carving, Louie

Welcome aboard, your work is nice and clean. Good to see more people from Hawaii on here. I bet you could make some killer lures.

Holy Mackerel your work is amazing!! I really like the whale pendant!! I wonder why?

[ Edited by: The Sperm Whale 2008-08-16 14:40 ]

Wow...that's a very detailed process breakdown. Big thanks for the advice - I hope I can put it to use soon, and please keep posting!

Aloha Allen Tiki! I have been making hook and lure replicas for over 30 years, and here are two not very good pics of two showcases I made about 5 years ago. I dont do all that many, but just finished one which will go into the National Park Office in American Samoa. The crowning lure to make in my opinion is the famous large Tongan Tuna lure, with whale bone shank, pearl shell along the bottom, and the point carved from thick, highly endangered Hawksbill Turtle side plates. I can fake one these days with cow bone, and pearl shell, and replacing the turtle shell point with Water buffalo horn in amber color if you can find it. I also found that moose antler can make big Feau-whalebone hooks. My showcases are all over the Pacific, in big hotels, airports, conference rooms, banks private homes, and even one in the American Samoa Museum! The one I just did has a copy of a Hawaiian Whalebone Shark hook collected by Captain Cook on his second voyage here, now held in the British Museum, and the original can be seen online. Way back when I could work in Whalebone, I did three Maori War clubs from the rib of a humpback whale, all three very famous pieces held in museums, including a Patu Paraoa and Kotiate from the Captain Cook collection, and a Wahaika held in the Taranaki Museum, with a tiki figure on one side. I will try to scan some old pics to post here later. Louie

those fish rock man , the Detail WOWWWWWWW .

HERE
.comis Louies Fly fishing show From Kettlebottom and when you watch it I have a feeling the Harp playing in the backgroung is done by none other than Louie Himself. I don't know for sure, I just suspect.
Anyway LOUIE I'd Love to go bonefishing with you!. Cool.
Also, the Showcases you show are Totally Awesome. Man you don't have enough time to do all the stuff you do. Carving fishing, carving Playing music, Carving and during all that you come here and show us how to do some too, THANKS!

HERE ALSO you can see Louie on YouTube Teaching some bone carving
HappyHappyHappy

wow nice work

BUMP, Louie? Where'd you GO?

Nice!

WOW !

On 2008-09-01 14:14, Benzart wrote:
BUMP, Louie? Where'd you GO?

He must be "Gone fishing".