Harp Badge for Boat School

In April, I formed a woodcarving club - Limerick Woodcarvers. We meet in the classroom of the AK Ilen boat-building school in Roxboro in Limerick. The boat-building school has recently completed 4 traditional river Shannon gandelows (flat-bottomed river rowing-boats) and took them to Venice in Italy for a race. On request, I made harp-shaped badges for the stern of the boats, based on the logo of the AK Ilen organisation. They are each about 4 inches long, made of lime wood, and coated in Danish oil. The badges were finished just in time for the trip to Italy. I used two of the swirl-holes to pierce the badges to take wood-screws, for attaching to the gandelows.

Hurling Ball (Sliotar)

This is a wooden model of the ball used in the Irish (Gaelic) game of Hurling. The leather ball, or sliotar (pronounced shlitther) is hit with a wooden stick (a hurley). I carved this wooden copy of the ball from bog oak, i.e. very old wood recovered from a field. It was part of the deal, that my colleague Billy gave me a large chunk of bog oak in return for my carving a sliotar for him. After I used a saw and chisels to make the rough sphere, I carved the final shape with knives and palm tools. I sanded it then finished it with varnish.

Flat-plane Fisherman

I followed Gene Messer's YouTube videos to carve this character from a block of basswood 1.5 x 1.5 x 4.75 inches, using a Mike Shipley knife and a V-tool. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VKYTA5eKXL8)
It was a lot of fun. Thanks Gene.

Creation of Adam - bosting in

Bosting In - carving the hands down to different levels:
So I've started bosting in (as master-carver Chris Pye would call it) - I'm lowering different sections of the wood down towards the levels or planes that they will have towards the end. For example I need to leave the thumbs high, but I need to cut the middle fingers down to a lower level.
The old lime-wood is dry and tends to fray and splinter, even after I sharp the tool I'm using at the time, so before I wrap the hands in plastic for the night, I lightly spray a mist of water over them to add moisture.
The tools in the picture are: Pfeil (Swiss Made) gouges, a Robert Sorby gouge, an Allen Goodman knife and a Helvie knife (coloured handle).

Creation of Adam - setting in

Setting In - keeping it square: 
I have been setting in the sides of the hands. That means I've carved the edges of the hands to make a 90 degree angle with the top surface (and with the base). The tool I used to guide me is an adjustable combination square, because my try square is too long to fit without hitting against the base.
Then when I start carving downwards (bosting in), the hands will not lose their outer shape.

Creation of Adam - more grounding out

Continuing to ground out, using one of my favourite large gouges - a Robert Sorby 38mm type D straight gouge.

Creation of Adam - grounding out

Plasticine model.

I want to carve hands and I like Michelangelo's Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Rome, so I plan to carve a high relief version in wood of just the hands and wrists of Adam and God.  I made a plasticine (like play-dough) model of the hands on a laminated reduced-size printout, so that I could study where the high points are going to be.  I cut a 57 x 23 x 9 cm (22.5 x 9 x 3.5 inches) block of lime wood and I used carbon paper to trace print-outs of the hands onto the wood. From the near side of the wood, I started to ground out the background with a Pfeil (Swiss Made) gouge that is both deep (sweep no. 9) and wide (20 mm). On the far side of the hands ("above" them), I tried using Forstner drill bits to drill out much of the waste. I got this drilling idea in a Chris Pye book (Elements of Woodcarving).

Grounding out the background

The Finished Trout

Here he is, suitably mounted on a wooden chopping board, textured to represent flowing water. Both background and fish are varnished in high gloss as though they are permanently wet.

The Trout earns his Spots

I used a simple woodburner to create the spots on top of the fish. Then I coated everywhere with Danish oil. The top and the eye area were darkened with teak oil mixed with rosewood-coloured wood preservative. The belly was brightened with sunflower oil tainted with white oil-paint. I'll let it dry for a few days before lacquering.

The Trout Coming Along

It can be hard to find time time to carve, what with work, chores and family life. I keep chipping away at the trout. Trying to bring this project to completion reminds me of the maths problem about limits, if a flea jumps along a ruler and can only jump half the remaining distance each time, the flea is coming ever closer to the end but just never gets there. (Although my theory is that he can just reach out and pull himself that last couple of micrometers to the finishing line.)
In the meantime, I've used a gouge and a veiner to imprint the impression of scales on the trout's skin. I used veiners and a V-tool to put some bones into the fins. I painted the eyes yellow (too yellow maybe) and used black inside the drilled-out pupils. I placed a piece of waste clear rigid plastic food packaging on a breadboard and point a small gouge onto it, then I rotated the plastic 360 degrees until the gouge had cut out a perfect little plastic disc. I glued the disc to the trout's pupil with clear varnish. Now let's work on that tongue .....

Seahorse

Carved a seahorse from a basswood practice block at the weekend. It's inspired by one of Gene Messer's YouTube video lessons.

The Trout - Taking Shape

I mounted the basswood trout onto a carving jig and locked it into a bench vice. This frees up my two hands to use tools. The pectoral and abdominal fins are taking shape. More importantly, I agonisingly settled on the exact location of the eyes (yes there's a right eye on the other side) and so I could give the fish a face, so to speak. At this stage, I've use gouges and my Allen Goodman knife. I drilled a 4.5 mm hole for the eye pupils.

Rounding the Trout

I drew a centre line along the top of the trout from front to back. The same on the bottom. On the trout's left side, I drew a line from the mouth to the centre of the tail. These lines mark my high points and I have been rounding the fish by removing wood between these lines. Towards the middle of the fish, the line on the left is placed a bit higher than the centre of the fish, because that's where the fish is thickest (not in the dead centre).

More roughing-out on the trout

I took off most of the wood on the sides of the fish. I've made the tail curve out slightly to the fish's left. If you're wondering why the dorsal fin on the top is not centred, it's because my piece of basswood is narrower than the original trout I am copying, so I'm effectively leaving off part of the right side of it's body. I plan to mount that side of the carving onto a board of some kind, so the missing "slice" isn't so important.

Tools used on the trout

I finished the outer profile of the trout. Here are the main tools I used to rough it out so far: Warren knife, Mike Shipley knife, Allen Goodman knife, Helvie knife, large chizel, try-square, pencil, rasp, coping saw, Flexcut carving jack, Kirschen (Two Cherries) gouge, Pfeil (Swiss Made) V-tool, leather strop and Flexcut stropping compound.

The Trout - First Step

My step-father asked me to carve him a trout. Mind you that was last year, but better late than never. I bought a trout from a fish supplier and I traced the outline onto paper. Then I used carbon paper to transfer the outline onto a block of basswood. I don't have a band-saw, but I used a Mike Shipley knife, an Allen Goodman knife, a Flexcut carving jack, a small gouge, a flat chizel, a large rasp and a coping saw to bring the wood down to the outline so far. I have been doing spot-checks with a try-square to see if there are any large bumps or slants that need to be corrected. In this picture you can see at the bottom that I'm not quite there yet. My wife has been very patient so far about the wood-chips that are still found around the sitting room the next morning after each bit of carving.

Egg-cup

I whittled this egg-cup together from some scrap basswood over a couple of evenings while watching TV. (My wife Frances had custody of the remote control of course.) I used a couple of knives and a Flexcut carving jack. It's finished off with a few coats of sanding sealer (shellac and alcohol), which actually took me longer than the carving itself. The egg is real and was kindly given to me by Colm, a colleague at work who keeps chickens at home.

Duck Completed

Here are some photos of the duck before I sent it to my stepsister for Christmas 2010.

Duck in Progress

Working on a duck for my stepsister. It's going reeeeally slowly. It's an old piece of lime wood from the same block as the coffee spoon. Tools used: Knives, gouges, you name it.

Coffee Spoon

Whittled away at a piece of waste lime wood with a knife and a small gouge with a curved shaft. The wood was already turning a nice colour with age. Finished it with shellac sanding sealer and some floor wax.