I tend to do most of my relief carving on basswood, because it's great. It's a softwood, but it has very, very tight grain, so it cuts buttery smooth. The downside is that trying to power carve with a rotary tool doesn't work at all. It fuzzes up and is generally impossible to get smooth again. So hand tools it is. The next step was to transfer the design over to the wood. Because basswood is so soft, I don't bother with carbon paper (also because I don't have any). I just use a ballpoint pen and press the design down into the wood. This leaves an outline dent in the surface of the wood, which I darken up with a pencil.
Once I had a knife wall around the whole outside of the design, I sharpened up my big flat fishtail gouge. It's about 1cm wide, and has a very shallow dish to it. To hone it up, I use a stropping block I made from a hunk of walnut, to which I glued a slice of vegetable-tanned leather. I rub the leather with green honing compound, and draw the tool across the treated leather. Always strop your tools from the back of the blade to the edge. This removes the burr that comes from stone sharpening and using the tool. It also ensures you don't dig hunks out of the leather surface. I worked my way around the piece, pushing the gouge gently toward the knife wall, taking shallow cuts all the way around the design. Then I went around a second time, cutting deeper to make the design stand out more from the background. Sometimes, if I cut deeper than the knife wall, I'd have to trim the chips away with the chip knife. I had to be really careful and slow around the ends of the legs and between them. There was a real risk of chipping a bunch of material out accidentally. Once I was satisfied with the depth of the border, I started cutting down the spaces in between the legs, and the little designs on the body and neck of the horse. I used the same technique here. Knife wall to protect the figure, then gouges to deepen the background. For the smaller spots, I had to switch to a narrower gouge that would fit the space. I even used my spoon-bit gouge, which has a funky kink in its neck, to get to some of the really little spots. The final step before finishing the wood was to smooth out all the rough cuts. This isn't entirely necessary, depending on your aesthetic sense, but I like things smoother generally. I used a couple of little rifflers, which are basically really funny-shaped files, to smooth out the entire cut portion of the figure, rounding everything off, and getting rid of all the jaggy little edges I left in the previous steps. Once everything was nice and smooth, I used a cheap hardware store chip brush to apply a generous coat of boiled linseed oil. This stuff makes basswood look *beautiful*. Grain that you didn't know existed pops right out, and the whole piece takes on this satiny sheen, and a lovely honey-colored glow. See for yourself. And that's it! Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more makings.
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I really didn't feel like the wand project was complete. The poor thing just looked so lonely, sitting on its side on a shelf, or my desk, or wherever. It needed a good place to be. A place of distinction and respect. So I grabbed a hunk of Brazilian cherry wood I bought about 6 years ago, found a pretty steeple-grained section, and hacked it off. Then, using techniques I learned doing my twisted copper torcs, I made a pair of uprights to rest the wand on. Then, I planed, sanded, drilled and oiled the cherry base, glued in the uprights, and, well, take a look:
Not every wizard operates within the confines of the city, or even what most would call the "civilized world". There are those who strike out on their own, into the wild places where people don't dare to tread. They seek untouched places, unseen vistas, and unnamed creatures in the lonely, dark wilderness. This is a wand for one of them. Crafted from wild-cut white maple, and carefully shaped to preserve the natural bend of the tree's will, this wand cradles the hand, and is less susceptible to disarmament due to physical altercation, or expelliarmus. From its grip to its tip, to its hemlock root core (shh. not really), this wand is created for the natural wizard. Rangers, wanderers, tamers, and guides alike. Sorry folks, this one's not for sale.
The ConceptIn the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson, nobles carry what are called "Dueling Canes". I'm not too far along in the first book, but the idea intrigued me. What if nobility could settle differences via nonlethal combat, with something like a classy Shillelagh? I decided to make a walking stick with some swordlike qualities. It had to look like an inconspicuous cane, be comfortable to grip in an offensive stance, and be durable enough to last through (at least) one good walloping. The MaterialsI'm running on a tight budget, so this was gonna be a hardware store build. No fancy exotic woods for me. My choices were a hickory sledge hammer handle ($10ish) or a 1 1/8" red oak dowel ($7ish). I went for the oak dowel, partly because it was cheaper, but also because I got a full three feet out of it, where the hammer handle would have needed cutting to remove the accommodations for the hammer head. I also wasn't crazy about the rough finish on the hickory handle, which would have meant sanding it off. On the way home from Home MegaLowe's, I stopped off at the hobby shop for a 2" hardwood ball to act as the topper/handle/pommel for the cane. Cost about $1.50. So all in all, we're down about $8.50. The only other materials I used were scrounged in my garage. A lag bolt for the bottom end to keep the wood from banging on concrete surfaces, some polyurethane to shine and seal, and a couple dabs of wood glue. The BuildI started off with the ball, since that had the greatest chance for disaster. Without any kind of good jig or vice to use in my drill press, I was gonna have to go it by hand. I started the hole with a 1" hole saw, then hogged out the material left in the core with a 1" spade bit. I probably could have gotten away with just the spade bit, but those things tend to leave really rough edges. It was nerve wracking, but it worked pretty well. Yeesh. Next was shaping the body of the cane itself. Most of this happened out back on my bootleg shaving horse. I did almost all the work with my half-round spokeshave. I needed to reduce the diameter of the dowel by 1/8 inch at the end so it would fit the 1" hole in the ball, so I did that first. I'd say the spokeshave has paid for itself, but it was an XMas gift. Thanks, Mom-in-law! Then, I needed to add a sword-like handle just below the ball. I worked the next 6-7 inches into a pleasing oval profile that fit my hand well. Next was the body of the thing. I flattened out the middle third-ish of the dowel, aligned with the grip to lighten the cane and give it a bit of a sword-ish profile. If you land a hit, even in the middle, the reduced surface area of the narrowed edge will transfer more force to a smaller area, and the lower mass should make for a swifter swing. Lookit those cute curly shavings! Finally, for the end, I tapered the last 8ish inches from 1 1/8" to about 3/4", making sure to keep the cone even all the way around. This is where the shaving horse comes in really handy. It allows you to very quickly turn the piece you're working without having to fiddle over and over with a vise, giving you more opportunity to keep things even. Once I was happy with the overall shape, I glued the ball in place, then started sanding. The spoke shave did a pretty good job of leaving an even surface, so I started with 150 grit, then went to 220 after I leveled out all the high spots and dings. Sanding is basically the worst thing, but it makes stuff look so pretty. Once it was all smooth, I started the finishing process. I bent a finish nail into a U shape, and hung the cane upside down from the ceiling of my garage, and brushed on three layers of polyurethane, with a 220 sanding between each. Once it was dry, the last step was to add a tip to the end, so that repeated banging against hard surfaces wouldn't chowder the wood up too bad. I don't much like the look of rubber chair tips, so I cut the top off of a 5/16" lag bolt I had laying around, and glued it into a 5/16" hole I drilled in the center of the cane's bottom. It gives a very satisfying *CLACK* when it touches down. The Final ProductI'm really happy with how this cane came out. It feels great in the hand in cane mode and in sword mode. The finish is very hard, and can baseball-swing a pine cone into the bleachers with nary a scratch. Yes, that's my very scientific method for testing wood finish. The finished cane En garde!
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AuthorI'm Dan, and I make things. Jewelry, food, carvings, Viking knotwork, and at least one child (so far). This is where I document all that stuff. Archives
May 2017
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