For Sale

All wood carvers buy tools and carve with them. After a while depending on direction or style they buy more tools to suit that direction or style. As time progresses they may, sadly, stop carving or continue on in a different direction. It all is influenced by our creative urges and life events. 

Some people like Caricature others like Relief or a variety of other styles. You can use all sorts of tools to carve and after a while you have your tried and true favourites.  

Sometimes life changes the tools you use. Arthritis or injury or other things happen and you may be forced to switch from hand tools to power or even the other way. 

At some point the surplus tools start to look like clutter and you have the option of giving them away to other carvers or selling them. It all depends on how urgently you want to sell tools or carve as to how fast you get rid of them or keep them stored in a dusty corner.

This of course is a great opportunity for newer carvers to buy some fairly decent tools at a reasonable price. But as always you might want to know what you are looking for and what you plan to use it for before you buy just anything. 

This rambling has been inspired by my clean out of my cramped carving space. I am boxing up a variety of tools to be sold or otherwise and after a time if I do not go tearing through the box to retrieve a tool as vital to the continuance of a project than they will leave with no regrets. I just hope that they are treasured by the new owner.

I won't list tools in this forum but if you know me and might  have a need contact me and maybe we can make an exchange that suits us both.

A Viking Begins a Journey

So I was asked some time ago to fix up a stick that had been carved in the shape of a Viking. There was not enough room to do any modifications that would make it look acceptable to me. So I cut the head off drilled a hole for a large dowel to epoxy a piece of basswood to the existing stick with a Butternut spacer between them. The horns and the helmet rivets are Butternut. The horns were reinforced with superglue. I added a lanyard with a blood knot for the stick holder to hang on to. Of course no stick would be complete without a brass and stainless steel hiking tip to keep it protected from the rough trail. There is also an interchangeable rubber tip for when you want to do some mall adventures! The lower half of the stick is Diamond Willow.

Artistry in Wood Continued

My Santa tree topper carved for the Artistry in Wood ornament raffle tree. Also three photos of carvings on the Out West woodcarving booth hosted by Lynn and Judy Doughty

Dayton Artistry in Wood

A few carvings on display at Artistry in Wood 2015. These wonderful pieces were carved by Fred Zavidil from Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Fred has a website http://www.fredzavadilwoodcarving.com and you can see more of his fabulous work both realistic and caricature. Enjoy

Some Time

Time has slipped away and another memorable summer with lots of bike rides and trips to strange places, some nicer than others is behind us. The biking weather has turned ugly and I only need about 40 odd km to reach my yearly goal of 10000km. Some snow has fallen and the high mountains are not a place you want to be this time of year. Down in the Valley we are enduring copious amounts of rain. Sometimes 100 mm at a time. Good time to catch up with reading carving and other sedentary persuits. I have finished another five or six Christmas ornaments. So that is a good thing. If you get a chance go to the Dayton Artistry in Wood show there is abut as much as one could possibly see related to Carving, Turning, and Fine Furniture building. Hope to see you there The show is next weekend November 14 and 15 at the Dayton International Airport. It is around the backside of the airport at the Airport Expo Centre. The Show opens at 10 AM both days. For more info here is a link to the Show page on the club website. http://www.daytoncarvers.com/artistryinwood.html

Tree Topper for the Christmas Tree at Dayton Artistry in Wood

Tree Topper for the Christmas Tree at Dayton Artistry in Wood

Carving Wooden Thread Spools

I recently received a collection of wooden spools from an older lady who was down sizing and moving into a retirement complex. I learned she was not sewing anymore. Since wooden spools are not to common anymore and are dated I think that she may have given up the hobby some time ago. I started carving the spools and here are the first four of hopefully many. Maybe by the time I get through this collection I will be a more proficient carver.

Cottonwood Bark Carving

Well I haven't posted to much here in the last while and a long while it is. I have been doing more stuff on the club blog and some of it was my own. I figured it was time to post about my own carvings on my this blog. So here are a couple of my recent carvings. The inspiration for these carvings comes from my fellow club members. They have ask me to teach a course on Cottonwood Bark carving. So with the help of my good friend and fellow carver Larry we have been advising club members on how to build a house that a hobbit would be proud to live in. Here are two small houses that I carved as we went along with demonstrations of the various elements that could be included in a Bark home. I used the pieces that no else seemed to want because they seemed too small or flawed. They turned out all right.