Beiträge von Brian Thair

Wonderful bird. It is very simply a Christmas penguin. Will you paint it?

Outside, under some sort of cover, but not cooked in a shed, I expect wood to dry at a rate of 2.5 cm per year. Western red cedar and yellow cedar and paper birch don't crack very much except for the ends. I expect some losses so I cut these pieces off.

Cut a wooden wedge from the back, the ugly side of the log, all the way down the center. This relieves a lot of drought stress. All totem poles are made this way, they are meant to be seen from one side and the other side is cut off to reduce cracks. Otherwise we will carve through the cracks and ignore them.

A very good result.

Hello Rainer: Yes, you are correct about the red cedar and the copper. Microsoft Translate is working very well.

Thank you so much, Zillertal, for the information on the translator. I have been fighting with Google Translate to make it do what I want =

write in my English, translate to German and then paste and post. Google makes some strange words in translation. I am getting used to wood carving gouges being called "irons."

Rainer Berndt: The wood is the old block of western red cedar on the right side in the first picture.

The dots you see are pure copper metal inlays made from the rivets used to assemble horse harness.

BergischerLoeffel: Your English is fine. My German is 55 years old and would embarrass us both.

All that is left to be done is the final detail shaping. The copper signifies wealth and prosperity.

As you can see, there are corn cob designs and the dish stands upon 4 feet, about 8 mm high.

With the outside design finished, I used a 18mm Forstner bit to rough out the central part of the inside.

A.ll the sloping ends will have to be done with gouges and knives.

I have learned that the next phase is to complete the outside.

I.will carve the inside last.

F.or the design, I looked at Central American corn/maize stone alter designs.

There is no reason to need a lathe to make a dish.

The First Nations from here in the Pacific Northwest never had lathes and nobody cared.

I. have no lathe yet I carve dishes of several sizes.

The first thing to do is to select some wood. These shake blocks are western red cedar.

The fresh and colored ones weigh about 18kg, the old weathered block is dark brown and maybe 10kg.

They are 60 cm tall and split to follow the grain with no knots whatsoever.

The old block needed to have clean surfaces and end cracking sawn off to maybe 45cm.

I use Google Translate for German language.

There are some 500-600 species of oak (Quercus.) Maybe 60 in the United States, 11 in Canada.

The carving exhibits the delicacy of the oak anatomical features. Being a mix is an even better generalization of "oak."

First Nations here in the Pacific Northwest split alder and birch logs to maybe get 2 bowls.

Sealaska publishes several books showing how to carve such bowls, masks and hats in the Tsimshian & Tlingit styles.

True, it is easiest to remove the inside wood. That is why I say do that last, not first.

That inside wood supports the shell as you carve the outside. You can screw it to the bench in that waste wood.

Titebond III and Gorilla glues are food safe when fully cured. However, they lack thermal stability

for hot drinks in kuksa. It should never be difficult to find wood for cups in one piece.

You arrange the carving design to do the least amount of work across the grain.

You have no choice. Yes, it is a lot of work. Carvers see that.

First, you carve the outside. That uses the strength of the inside wood to prevent chipping.

Last, you carve out the inside.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, large and small food bowls are all carved the same way:

Imagine the wood log is a cylinder. Fresh wood is much easier to carve than seasoned wood.

The dish is elongate, an oval shape. Standing on end in the log with the bowl toward the center of the log.

From the outside, you are looking at the bottom of the dish.

If you cannot find a good log, then a glue-up of pieces must be made.

Nice to meet you and welcome.

I carve with the common tools used by the First Nations people of the Pacific Northwest.

You can see some in the Showcase. The usual chips and shavings.

Any sawing or sanding, I do outdoors in the summers.

I carve western red cedar and yellow cedar, both common here on the Pacific northwest coast.

Some spruce, a little pine from our boreal forest.

1. The most important wood anatomy is to do a count of annual rings in conifer woods.

15 - 40 rings per 25mm is good for carving.

40+ is very boney brittle.

12 or less may look very nice but too soft to be useful at all.

2. Keep your bench clean. The chips will make marks in the wood.

3. Never pry or dig out a cut. If the chip pops off, you may never find it again.

Welcome from the Rocky Mountains in Canada. I have 10 years on you kids.

Carving is very good strength exercise.

Welcome Andre' Learning to keep your tools "carving sharp" is very important.

E.very 30 minutes for me.

Saw milled wood is rarely ever cut along the grain. Only split wood is like that to follow the grain.

What you can see is that the grain in the wood rises towards the surface on one face of the board.

Best to carve in that direction. Turned around, your edge will dig in and not come out smoothly.

That's what I think of when I read "carve with the grain."

I think that I posted a picture of a large Frog Dish in the Showcase. That is 3 pieces of Yellow Cedar.

Like a fool, I turned the middle piece around. It had to be carved completely opposite to the left and right sides.

PacNW crooked knives are not like spoon-carving knives.

Most spoon knives have a constant radius of curvature, a half circle.

The crooked knives have mostly straight blades with a crooked end curve to them.

Then the end may be sharpened to a point or may be left rounded but still "carving sharp."

Your knife is almost sharp enough to make shallow chip cuttings.

Make certain that the total included bevel angle of the edge is no more than 12 degrees.

Otherwise, the "attack" angle forces you to take a thick cut.

A different knife altogether might be a thought.

The crooked knives used here in the Pacific Northwest might be another thought.

You can find some of mine in the Showcase.