Tech­nol­ogy — Can’t Live With It — Can’t Live With­out It! 

Please refer and fol­low all man­u­fac­tur­ers’ directions.

The last week in Jan­u­ary, my inter­net access, per­sonal com­puter, iPad, scan­ner, inkjet and laser print­ers got into an argu­ment and decided not to com­mu­ni­cate with each other. It was like a mas­sive divorce; they were all going their sep­a­rate ways. I spent over five hours cajol­ing, and then beg­ging them to acknowl­edge each oth­ers presence.

Hop­ing for a dis­trac­tion, I turned on the radio and began reen­ter­ing the Blue­tooth 16 digit Key Code (num­bers and cap­i­tal let­ters) for the fourth time, when the radio announcer advised, “Although it is true Mer­cury has gone ret­ro­grade, only the “unin­formed” believe that this planet has the abil­ity to dis­rupt communications.”

Yeah – right – you betcha.

It was then that I men­tally listed all the rea­sons I love carv­ing wood so much more than deal­ing with tech­nol­ogy. You can carve any piece of wood, any­where in the world, with­out pass­words, inter­net access, pro­grams, inkjet or laser car­tridges, key codes, pro­gram upgrades, viruses, virus pro­tec­tion pro­grams, scan­ners, down­loads, files, fold­ers, USB ports, dri­ver updates, clouds, back­ups, blue­tooth, and emails I should have, but I swear, never received. It’s just you, the wood and a sharp tool. Heaven!

You wouldn’t believe it, to read the above, but I like tech­nol­ogy, except when it doesn’t work NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO, and if I had won the MEGA-MILLION LOTTO I promise you, in a heart­beat, I would have drop kicked every last piece of tech­nol­ogy I own out my second-story win­dow as soon as I checked that no one was in the back yard and would get hurt.

And then … as usual … life proves how very wrong I am. Here it is – almost two weeks later – and I am singing technology’s praises. Let me explain.

I was speak­ing with Carv­ing Illustrated’s 2014 Wood­carver of the Year, (applause, applause) Rick Jensen, about bark power carv­ing when Rick men­tioned that air fil­ters (because of dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers) don’t always fit securely into air clean­ers. While teach­ing one of his classes, Rick noticed dust cling­ing to the wall behind the air clean­ers and decided to inves­ti­gate. Rick then told me some­thing that I thought would be a ter­rific TIP for this column.

It was Feb­ru­ary 11 when I called Rick to request his per­mis­sions to share his TIP (remem­ber the date – it’s impor­tant later on). Not only did he allow me to share his TIP with you, he offered to pro­duce a short video for us!

That evening, Rick asked his wife, Jody, (who just came home from a long day at work), to record his TIP, edit it, and send it to me via their Drop­box. I received the video, down­loaded the file to my Drop­box, and emailed the shared link to Matt Kel­ley, who will do his magic so all of you can see Rick’s air fil­ter TIP, when you click the link below.

Did I men­tion that I LOVE technology?

I always say that wood­carvers are the best peo­ple and it’s true. Now, I want to add that wood­carvers’ wives (and hus­bands) are just as great. Thank you, Jody, for tap­ing Rick’s TIP for all of us!

You can see Rick’s TIP by click­ing: HERE

On a side note … just for the heck of it … I checked the Inter­net and (I would never lie to you) Mer­cury stopped going ret­ro­grade on Feb­ru­ary 11. I told you to remem­ber that date.

Life is cer­tainly full of mysteries.

Oh … one more thing … while I chat­ted with Rick, he men­tioned that he and Jody had just shot two videos for Sabu­ur­tooth Tools. You can see them at: https://www.facebook.com/saburrtoothtools/videos. Enjoy!

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E-MAIL:  Sub­ject — Human Hands

I received an email from carver, Gary Cum­mins, ask­ing:

Can you rec­om­mend any instruc­tional books, arti­cles, DVDs, etc. on the sub­ject of carv­ing car­i­ca­ture and real­is­tic human hands out there?  Tips, advice, etc. would be appre­ci­ated. My carved hands either look like a knot of sausages or claws.

The first thing I did when I received Gary’s email is trot down to my work­shop and dig through my study sticks. One of my favorites is from Dave Stet­son. Dave’s is the only hand study stick I have ever come across. I’ve owned it for years, and can’t recall where/when I pur­chased it.

Closed Hand Study by Dave Stetson

Because I think it is rather use­less to sug­gest an item to a carver with­out advis­ing where it can be pur­chased, I went online and searched and searched and searched and came up with nada. I made a few phone calls to ven­dors – still nada.

Dave’s web­site, www.stetsoncarving.com didn’t offer the hand study stick either, so I called him – twice. But, there was no answer and no voice mail available.

Not to be deterred (work­ing hard for you, Gary), I emailed Dave.

Dave called me right back and we had a great con­ver­sa­tion. Ends up that he had just pur­chased a new phone and hadn’t had time to set up his voice mail yet. Bot­tom line, we are in luck! Dave no longer pro­duces these hand study sticks, but has about a dozen left. [Edi­tor note — make that eleven left.]  If you would like to pur­chase one, email Dave at www.stetsoncarving.com. They cost $24.95 plus ship­ping. When he sells the last of them — they’re gone.

Before our con­ver­sa­tion ended, Dave asked if I had ever seen the Carvi­nOn­line web­site. I hadn’t, but after­wards I checked it out. It looks ter­rific. There must be close to 20 accom­plished carv­ing instruc­tors offer­ing carv­ing videos. Their web­site is: http://www.carvinonline.com/index.shtml#What%20can%20I%20Learn.

There is a cost per month, or for three months, or for the year to access the videos. What I liked was that there were a num­ber of free lessons offered by dif­fer­ent instruc­tors, so you can actu­ally take a test-drive before you buy. I did notice that there is one les­son offered on how to carve an opened hand.

If you pre­fer to pur­chase a book on hand-carving, then Ivan Whillock’s Hand Pro­por­tion Made Easy con­tains infor­ma­tion on carv­ing opened and closed hands as well as on the hand’s anatomy. This book is offered from our fine sponsors.

Hand Pro­por­tion Made Sim­ple by Ivan Whillock

Thanks for your email, Gary. One of the rea­sons I enjoy writ­ing this col­umn is because I learn so very much when research­ing ques­tions like yours, as well as the oppor­tu­nity to make new carv­ing friends like Dave Stetson.

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E-MAIL: Sub­ject — Eagle Head Walk­ing Sticks

I received an email from carver, Mike Her­mann, ask­ing:

Hi Susan, I was won­der­ing where to find walk­ing stick how-to project of an eagle’s head.

Ini­tially, I responded to Mike’s email with two book sug­ges­tions. The first book, should he want to carve a whim­si­cal eagle, is one I owned that uses bass­wood eggs, Carv­ing Wooden Fin­ger Pup­pets and Cane Top­pers 20 Whim­si­cal Projects from Bass­wood Eggs by Ross Oar. The premise is that you carve a hole in the back of your eagle head carv­ing which then allows you to either mount it on a cane, as a top­per, or place (not mount) it on a child’s fin­ger as a fin­ger puppet.

Fin­ger Pup­pets & Cane Top­pers by Ross Oar

I wasn’t cer­tain if Mike wanted to carve a real­is­tic eagle, so I found a sec­ond book, online, Carv­ing Wild Fowl Canes and Walk­ing Sticks with Power by Rus­sell, $14.95. I don’t have a photo of that, but there was an eagle on its cover.

Since that time, I’ve been think­ing about Mike’s request. Per­haps, Mike wanted to carve a walk­ing stick with an eagle’s head for a vet­eran. If so, Hey Mike – here are two great links.

If you go to: http://www.wcsh6.com/videos/life/2014/06/06/10069967/ you’ll see a news video about George and Donna Gun­ning, along with Bert Tru­man, who have cre­ated over 1800 Eagle Canes. They’ll make an eagle’s head cane for any vet­eran that requests one, free of charge. I had to share this with all of you. It makes me feel proud to be in the com­pany of wood­carvers. Bless George, Donna and Bert!

Then, I found a sec­ond web­site, the Eagle Cane Project. This group’s goal is to pro­vide PRESENTATION CANES to a select group of Post 9–11 Vet­er­ans who have received some man­ner of leg dis­abil­ity from com­bat related actions.

Their home page is: http://www.eaglecane.com/ftp.eaglecane/Welcome.html. Their site is very com­plete and well orga­nized. It offers Eagle Cane Project guide­lines, request form, poster, tuto­ri­als, and a list of par­tic­i­pants and orga­ni­za­tions, by state, with their emails, recip­i­ents, con­tacts, links and Eagle Cane News.

It any reader would like to offer addi­tional sug­ges­tions for Mike, please email me at SusanAlexanderCarvesOnWOM@comcast.net (or use the form at the bot­tom of this arti­cle) and I’ll list your sug­ges­tion and name in the next issue of WOM.

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E-MAIL: Sub­ject — Styl­ized Carving

I receive at least one email every six months ask­ing for books on styl­ized carv­ings. Unfor­tu­nately, I could never pro­vide an answer, so this time I went to my buddy, Larry Yudis, of The Wood­craft Shop, for a sug­ges­tion. He searched and found, The Art of Styl­ized Wood Carv­ing by Solomon & Hamil­ton, $19.95. You can pur­chase this book from your favorite carv­ing store, or one of our ter­rific spon­sors. If you order from The Wood­craft Shop, this book is Item 912436. Thanks for your help, Larry.  (Link to The Wood­craft Shop in the Spon­sor side­bar to the right.)

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E-MAIL: Sub­ject — Pre­serv­ing Wood Carv­ing Statues

Last month, I received an email from Jim Sul­li­van regard­ing pre­serv­ing wood carv­ing stat­ues. I haven’t received any responses from read­ers, so I’ll run this by you a sec­ond time, hop­ing some­one can offer a sug­ges­tion for Jim. Here’s the orig­i­nal email.

I own a nativ­ity scene crèche of sev­eral carved wooden fig­ures and a carved wood sta­ble. The crèche was pur­chased in Ober­amegau, Ger­many, in 1958. I think the carved wood sta­ble may be of arolla (Swiss) pine, a type of white pine. It is stained a medium brown and the carved fig­ures (prob­a­bly from a dif­fer­ent, close-grained wood) are unstained. What should be done to pre­serve the wood from dry­ing out or oth­er­wise improp­erly aging? Thank you.

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E-MAIL: Sub­ject — Power Carv­ing Ref­er­ence

Last month, I also received an email from a carver who received a flex-shaft grinder/carver for Christ­mas. He asked for any Ref­er­ence Books or YouTube Videos that other carvers can rec­om­mend for power carving.

We can rec­om­mend, Power Carv­ing House Spirits by Tom Wolfe. It is avail­able from WOM’s carv­ing sup­ply sponsors.

Power Carv­ing House Spir­its by Tom Wolfe

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

If you have ques­tions for Susan, please sub­mit them using the form below.