Archive for July 2015

July/August 2015 WOM

Welcome to Woodcarver Online Magazine Volume 19 Issue 3

2014 Artistry in Wood — Day­ton Carvers Guild

2014 Artistry in Wood, Award winning carvings.

2014 Artistry in Wood, Best in Group K

1st Place — Group K

Kan­ga­roo and Joey

Diane Har­to, Man­tua, OH

Hel­lo, Friends in Carv­ing -

We are pleased to wel­come Gene Webb Enter­pris­es as the newest spon­sor of Wood­carv­er Online Mag­a­zine and CarversCompanion.com.   Gene offers instruc­tion and videos, sup­plies, tools and mate­ri­als, as well as fin­ished carv­ings.   Gene is run­ning a spe­cial right now for WOM/CarversCompanion.com read­ers:  20% dis­count on any orders $75.00 and over untill the end of May. Use the coupon code online or for phone-in orders. Coupon code is SAVEBIG.   Click on the graph­ic in the Spon­sor side­bar to vis­it his website.

In this issue:

  • Artistry In Wood 2014 Show Report and Win­ners Pho­to Gallery
  • Susan Alexan­der’s Let’s Talk Carv­ing #9
  • Steve Kulp’s Small Carv­ing Holder
  • Ol’ Don’s Draw­ing Table: Surf Seek­er
  • Pete LeClair: Stubby
  • Events, Hap­pen­ings and Goings-On Updat­ed

Com­ing up in Part II, in August:

  • Susan Alexan­der’s Let’s Talk Carv­ing #10
  • Book Reviews!
  • Notes From The Net Updat­ed

As always, we wel­come your feed­back, ideas for arti­cles, etc.  Please use the con­tact form on the About page in the menu bar above.

Enjoy!

 

Matt-IWC14

Pho­to by Marc Feath­er­ly at IWC ’14

Matt Kel­ley

Editor/Owner

2014 Artistry in Wood Show Report

Artistry In Wood — A Show of Shows

By Don Mertz

Since 1981 the Day­ton, Ohio Artistry in Wood show has gained the acclaim of being “A Show of Shows” in that each year it con­tin­ues to be the show to vis­it and expe­ri­ence for the first time over and over again.  The 2014 edi­tion host­ed approx­i­mate­ly 5,400 vis­i­tors who viewed over 225 exhibitors’ dis­plays and vis­it­ed numer­ous ven­dors of tools, sup­plies, wood and books for all who appre­ci­ate the cre­ative works of art in the medi­um of wood.

First time vis­i­tors were in awe at the size of the expo­si­tion hall, aes­thet­i­cal­ly laid out with car­pet­ed walk­ways and cur­tained aisles that led to rows of exhibitors, with each one offer­ing unique and beau­ti­ful wood­en art that cap­tured the appre­ci­a­tion of admir­ing eyes and hope­ful shop­pers.  Many vis­i­tors dis­cov­ered that one day was not long enough to take in all the won­ders of cre­ative inspi­ra­tion.  Return­ing for the sec­ond day became an adven­ture of dis­cov­ery of a new eye catch­er that was over­looked the first day.

One first time vis­i­tor who rep­re­sents the sen­ti­ments of many first timers com­ment­ed on the show through Face­book say­ing: The wife and I attend­ed the show for the first time. It was Amaz­ing!! The vari­ety of work was over­whelm­ing to a “new­bie” like me. Every­thing from carved Pop­si­cle sticks to a life sized fish­er­man reel­ing in a bass! All the exhibitors we talked to were more than will­ing to share their exper­tise, great bunch of folks, and with all the ven­dors in one spot it was like Christ­mas. (I spent too much!!)

Anoth­er good show, was a com­ment often repeat­ed along with sen­ti­ments that the show gets bet­ter and bet­ter.  So whether it was first time vis­i­tors or long time return vis­i­tors the sen­ti­ments were all complimentary.

Why Artistry in Wood is con­sid­ered the Show of Shows can be answered in a vari­ety of ways. First is the rep­u­ta­tion of pro­vid­ing the best venue for exhibitors to dis­play and sell their art as well as enter­ing wood­carv­ings and wood­work­ing projects in com­pe­ti­tion that has a full range of cat­e­gories and class­es judged by knowl­edge­able and respect­ed judges.

Wood­carv­ing judges included:

  • Josh Guge, Gilberts, IL
  • Rick Har­ney, Nor­mal, IL
  • John Engler, Bat­tle­field, MO.

All togeth­er, they judged 327 carv­ing entries.

The top carv­ing win­ners were:

  • Best of Show — Charley Phillips, Newark, TX
  • 2nd Best of Show, Sandy Cza­j­ka, Troy, OH
  • 3rd Best of Show — Dylan Good­son, AL.

Wood­work­ing judges were:

  • Roger Hor­nung, Ger­man­town, OH,
  • Lary Sanders, Spring­field, OH
  • Jim McCann, Brookville, OH

They judged 86 wood­work­ing entries, and the top wood­work­ing projects were:

  • Best of Show — Jay Kinsinger, Cedarvil­lle, OH
  • 2nd Best, Deb­o­rah Ander­son, Car­bon, IN
  • 3rd Best, Mark Waninger Jamestown, IN.

Read More→

2014 Artistry In Wood Photo Galleries

Artistry In Wood 2014 Photo Galleries

Pho­tog­ra­phy by Marc Featherly

To vis­it the Gallery pages, click the links below, or the Gal­leries link in the menu bar to the left.

Artistry in Wood 2014 Carv­ing Win­ners — click HERE

Artistry in Wood 2014 Wood­work­ing Win­ners - click HERE

2014 Artistry in Wood Casu­al Pho­tosclick HERE

Susan Alexander’s “Let’s Talk Carving” Issue 9

Susan bio shot  Carving Found Wood

 

 

A carv­ing friend, John Car­riere from Dar­win, Aus­tralia, emailed me that he recent­ly had com­plet­ed carv­ing his “found wood.” When I imag­ine drift wood, it isn’t any­where close to the 90 lbs., 15’ length of John’s found wood.

Of course, I had lots of ques­tions; the first of many being what “shore” was he walk­ing along when he dis­cov­ered it. I knew you’d be inter­est­ed in all of John’s answers and his ter­rif­ic pho­tos of this mas­sive carving.

Dar­win is at the top end of Aus­tralia so the shore here would be the Tim­or Sea being part of the Indi­an Ocean. The east­ern part of Aus­tralia is where the Pacif­ic Ocean is and Dar­win is close to the west­ern part. I don’t know where this tree float­ed from but it did not appear to have been root­ed here. Indone­sia is north of Dar­win so there is a pos­si­bil­i­ty it came from there.

I have final­ly fin­ished the large carv­ing. The pho­to does not do it jus­tice as a lot of carv­ings, with­in the carv­ing, do not show up very well. As it is drift wood, there was a bit of rot in some places.

(Click the pho­to for a larg­er view — use your web brows­er “Back” but­ton to return)

Back of the root.

Back

Front of the Root

Front

I found the trunk on the shore dur­ing a lunchtime walk about three years ago. Most of the tree was there, about 15 feet long. The flare or skirt at the bot­tom that helped to sup­port the tree was what drew my atten­tion to it. It was about a yard wide and tapered up like a tri­an­gle. It was too tempt­ing so I came back on the week end with a saw and a dol­ly. I cut out the tree and oth­er unwant­ed parts. The part I want­ed was very heavy, about 90 pounds and I had to tum­ble it up a bank of about 8 feet. I got it on the dol­ly and wheeled it to my car. I was in the process of get­ting a her­nia try­ing to tum­ble it into the trunk when a jog­ger came by and offered to help. I gra­cious­ly accept­ed it and we got it in the car. When I got home, I had to care­ful­ly tum­ble it out of the car. I then blast­ed it with the gar­den hose and got most of the mud and mold off of it. The rot in some areas got soft­er but remained.

I left it out­side for about a year as I wasn’t sure what I want­ed to carve on it, but it lent itself to being a moun­tain. It got rained on for a wet sea­son of harsh trop­i­cal storms which addi­tion­al­ly cleaned it but pro­gressed the rot. Some sec­tions of it were hol­low so rain got in there.

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DSC00091

I car­ried out more prun­ing which reduced its weight con­sid­er­ably and brought it into my work­shop. I was still unsure of what to carve on it until I received my copy of the May-June 2014 issue of Chip Chats Mag­a­zine. The carv­ing of a moun­tain scape by Dylan Good­son gave me the idea of doing some­thing sim­i­lar. I copied the house on his carv­ing but the rest of the carv­ing is from my imagination.

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DSC00094

I did a lot of home­work on off cut pieces of wood to prac­tice carv­ing flow­ers, vines, shrubs, trees, etc. before carv­ing these on the blank. It took from mid Feb­ru­ary to mid May, about 350 hours to com­plete it.

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DSC00095

I have attached addi­tion­al pho­tos show­ing more detail of the indi­vid­ual carv­ings. There is also a pho­to of the back so you will have a bet­ter idea of what I had to con­tend with. So it stands by itself as the base of it is like a third of an upside down cone. I worked around and includ­ed some of the rot in some of the indi­vid­ual carv­ings. I made lib­er­al use of plas­tic wood when required. It took the stain quite well and is hard to notice. There is a round area under the house which was rot­ten. There was noth­ing I could do with it oth­er than to carve an imi­ta­tion boul­der in pine and glue it in.

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I carved some of it as it stood and laid if flat on my work­mate bench for most of the carv­ing. My edged tools were used for most of the carv­ings. The excep­tion was the stone work on the house where I used a Drem­mel with a small bit. I didn’t sand between the carv­ings in order to main­tain a rough sur­face sim­i­lar to grass, weeds etc on the sur­face of a moun­tain. The trees were sand­ed to 180 grit but then roughed up with a v tool to sim­u­late bark. I have it on a wood box in my work­shop. The box is about 3 feet off the floor which is a good height for a line of sight to it.

The fin­ish is Cabot oil based stain and var­nish (satin tint) fol­lowed by car­nau­ba wax applied with a shoe pol­ish­ing brush. It was then pol­ished with a com­bi­na­tion of a shoe brush and a tight fibre pol­ish­ing cloth used to pol­ish lim­ou­sines. It’s a hard wax to pol­ish and your arms are con­sid­er­ing claim­ing a divorce from your body, but the fin­ished sur­face is worth it.

John Carriere

 My daugh­ter, Tanya, has helped me with these pho­tos. If you have any oth­er ques­tions, don’t hes­i­tate to let me know.

Take care, John

John, I doubt many of us will ever find, much less have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to drag home 90 lbs. of Indone­sia drift wood. Thank you so much for shar­ing the infor­ma­tion and pho­tos of your mas­sive carv­ing project. What a great carv­ing adventure!

Until next month, gen­tle read­er, may your wood be plen­ti­ful and your tools stay sharp. Take care, carve lots, and always remem­ber to smile.

Peace,
Susan.

 

Logo

Small Carving Work Holder

Small Carving Work Holder

By Steve Kulp

In response to a ques­tion on a Face­book group from Richard Sanchez about work hold­ers for small­er carv­ings.  Steve Kulp shared his design for a small work hold­er uti­liz­ing balus­ter screws and scrap wood.  This is a good method to hold small­er work and pre­vent injury!  Fol­low­ing is an expand­ed and more detailed ver­sion of his comments:

General Dimensions and Hardware

Gen­er­al Dimen­sions and Hardware

Gen­er­al Dimen­sions and Hard­ware. Note: don’t drill the 3/4 in. hole com­plete­ly through the hold­er block, or flat­ten the hole sides. You’ll see why later.

How to locate 1/4 in hole in the end

How to locate 1/4 in hole in the end

End view show­ing how to locate 1/4 in hole. Note: after drilling 1/4 in. hole re-drill slight­ly larg­er for screw thread clear­ance , also make sure the hole is at least 3 1/2 in. deep for balus­ter screw clearance .

Drill pilot hole in work piece

Drill pilot hole in work piece

Drill pilot hole in bot­tom of work piece about 1 in. deep, first mak­ing sure that it will not inter­fere with the carv­ing. After drilling the pilot hole run the Balus­ter screw into the carv­ing , either by using dou­ble nuts on the thread­ed end , or pli­ers grip­ping in or about the mid­dle of the Balus­ter screw .

Mounting workpiece on holder

Mount­ing work­piece on holder

Now we find out why we did­n’t drill the 3/4in. hole through. ! drop a 1/4 in. nut into the 3/4 in hole and jig­gle it around until it lays flat on the bot­tom side of the 3/4 in. hole , lined up with the end drilled 1/4 in hole.  Push the Balus­ter screw into the end hole till it butts against the nut.  Start the nut onto the Balus­ter screw by turn­ing the carv­ing until the nut is start­ed . After the nut is start­ed you should be able to turn the hold­er until the whole assem­bly tight­ens . And this is why we did­n’t flat­ten the edges of the 3/4 hole , the round­ed edges will hold the nut while you tight­en it .

Mounted vertically in a bench vice

Mount­ed ver­ti­cal­ly in a bench vice

The assem­bly tight­ened and mount­ed ver­ti­cal­ly in a bench vice .

Using the side hole

Using the side hole

Using the oth­er hole you can mount your carv­ing with the hold­er hor­i­zon­tal in a bench vice .

Horizontal clamped to a bench or table

Hor­i­zon­tal clamped to a bench or table

Vertical holder clamped to a bench or table

Ver­ti­cal hold­er clamped to a bench or table

You may vis­it Steve Kulp’s Face­book page to see more of his work by click­ing HERE

From “Ol’ Don’s” Drawing Table

OlDonFrom “Ol’ Don” Drawing Table

Ol’ Don” Burgdorf presents Surf Seek­er

To print the pat­tern, click here; the pat­tern will open in a new win­dow, and should print on 8.5 x 11 paper. For Print­ing Hints, click here.

Ol’ Don” Burgdorf is a carv­er and artist from Hohen­wald, TN. Don’s fea­ture “Doo­dles ‘n Notes for Carvin’ Folks” appears reg­u­lar­ly in Chip Chats, and his pat­terns are now found in each issue of WOM and in past issues of Carv­ing Mag­a­zine. Some of Don’s “Chat­ter­ing Chip­pers” pat­terns can also be seen at the Wood­carver’s Porch pat­tern page.

Copy­right 2011–2015 “Ol’ Don” Burgdorf. This Pat­tern may be copied for indi­vid­ual use; repro­duc­tion for resale is pro­hib­it­ed with­out express writ­ten permission.

From Pete LeClair — Stubby

Pete LeClair

Pete LeClair’s Projects

Pete LeClair’s Stubby

LeClair-Stubby-Mastter02

LeClair-Stubby-Master

Pete LeClair is a well-known carv­er and teacher, author of three carv­ing books and a mem­ber of the Car­i­ca­ture Carvers of Amer­i­ca. You may learn more about Pete at his page on the CCA web site. Be sure to tour the rest of the CCA pages when you have a moment. In addi­tion, you may email Pete at pet­ele­clair AT comcast.net. Pho­tos copy­right 2001 — 2015 by Pete LeClair.

This pat­tern may be copied for indi­vid­ual use only; repro­duc­tion for resale is pro­hib­it­ed with­out express writ­ten permission.