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Description
Different views of the firewood woman carving.

It all started one recent morning when I was moving art to a local show and to a local gallery where I sell on consignment. I was feeling 'empty'. Well it was 55 and sunny, so once my responsibilities were met at eleven, I had the choice to spring clean, work on a box or carve. >or fuck off
My intention was to make something fast.. one day. I went to the firewood pile.. second shelf and pulled out a ten pound block of lightly figured maple with just a bit of spalting. First up I made a clean end cut and using a draw knife I cleaned up splits to get to solid wood. I screwed a block of wood to the very bottom so I could clamp it in a vise and be free to carve right to the bottom. Then comes the chain saw, in this case I roughed with tiny echo set up with a carving bar. A series of crosscuts knocked out with a hatchet roughs it, immediately after a grinder with a 4.5" cutting head shapes. A rasp helped round over forms. Then small chisels clean it all up and refine the form. The face, which is passable but hardly excellent took as long to make as the whole body with arms. At some point you say enough and start to sand. Here I was hoping to get a little mileage out of the subtle tiger stripes so it was well smoothed and sanded to 120. I sanded where I could and didn't worry much where I could not. I finished sanding at ten hours and by the time it was sealed and waxed the next day 12 hours had passed. The wood is not quite dry, as it was carved over the day in the sun, drying checks opened, after sealing in the moisture with acrylic based varnish I simply packed the checks with wax. It'll season a month or two in the loft before I try to sell it.

Partly I say 'Not bad dude!" >High five-ing self The cuts are healing, back to box making, a new lady friend graces my space!

In scraps are a few pictures showing the tools I used in this not quite one day effort.

Description
Different views of the firewood woman carving.

It all started one recent morning when I was moving art to a local show and to a local gallery where I sell on consignment. I was feeling 'empty'. Well it was 55 and sunny, so once my responsibilities were met at eleven, I had the choice to spring clean, work on a box or carve. >or fuck off
My intention was to make something fast.. one day. I went to the firewood pile.. second shelf and pulled out a ten pound block of lightly figured maple with just a bit of spalting. First up I made a clean end cut and using a draw knife I cleaned up splits to get to solid wood. I screwed a block of wood to the very bottom so I could clamp it in a vise and be free to carve right to the bottom. Then comes the chain saw, in this case I roughed with tiny echo set up with a carving bar. A series of crosscuts knocked out with a hatchet roughs it, immediately after a grinder with a 4.5" cutting head shapes. A rasp helped round over forms. Then small chisels clean it all up and refine the form. The face, which is passable but hardly excellent took as long to make as the whole body with arms. At some point you say enough and start to sand. Here I was hoping to get a little mileage out of the subtle tiger stripes so it was well smoothed and sanded to 120. I sanded where I could and didn't worry much where I could not. I finished sanding at ten hours and by the time it was sealed and waxed the next day 12 hours had passed. The wood is not quite dry, as it was carved over the day in the sun, drying checks opened, after sealing in the moisture with acrylic based varnish I simply packed the checks with wax. It'll season a month or two in the loft before I try to sell it.

Partly I say 'Not bad dude!" >High five-ing self The cuts are healing, back to box making, a new lady friend graces my space!

In scraps are a few pictures showing the tools I used in this not quite one day effort.