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Here’s a work in progress. Having just finished doing a witch, I decided to start working on an angel which of course, helps get me started for this year’s Christmas carving.
I am also in the process of whittling down my wood pile which consists of many types of wood. For the angel, I decided to use a piece of aspen which was a cutoff scrap from a 2x4 cross support from a pallet. I just happen to be running to the store when I spied these white as snow wood pallets sitting in front of a house up the street. They were used to deliver cabinets to the house undergoing renovations. After my errand, I went up and checked them out. Fully expecting some crap wood or knotty oak, I was thrilled to see they were all aspen. I took 2 out of the three as that was all I could fit in my Honda Element at the time. Besides, the third one wouldn’t have fit by itself as it was about 8 feet long.
A couple of things with this piece of aspen. It has a knot on the top right at the juncture of the left wing. And my little knotty angel has a few cracks at the base on the left side which I hope to carve away. Finally, there are the two nail holes in the left wing which I was fully aware of. But when I did my quick split—a process using an old buck knife and a mallet to split off a small piece from the bigger one rather than cutting with a saw—I though I had cleared the nails. Well, I guess you know where this is going. Yup, took a chunk out of the knife’s edge. Guess that’ll on my list of things to do.
I am also using a few of my Flex-cut carving tools instead of a knife. I have had this idea to use the right and left skew gouge—both 9/16” wide and similar to a #3 profile, 5/8” #3 straight gouge, and a 3/8” #3 straight gouge. So, you can a trend here. My thought is to make similar chips to a knife but rather than putting the pushing force on my increasingly arthritic thumbs while pushing a knife, I want to see how it works for me using tools. The skew gouges are great for doing curved cuts, getting into tight corners. The 5/8 #3 is good for removing wood quickly. The 3/8” #3 is good for general cleanup as I go along. The best part—if one of the tools needs a stropping, I can switch to another rather than stopping. The Flex-cut strop works great with the yellow compound. BTW—I’m not plugging for Flex-cut. It just happens out of my small arsenal, these tools fit the bill. Oh one other thing, the first thing I did was to use consecutively increasing sized v-tools to split the wings before I started carving the body. That was a big help in removing quite a bit if wood.
When I started this carving, I was planning on painting it since there are blemishes in the wood—fill the holes with wood filler, etc. Even had a paint scheme too. But we’ll cross that “rainbow” bridge when I get to it.
In the meantime, I’ll be winging it since I hope to use this as a model for the next 2 or three angels I hope to carve. Enjoy!
BobL
P.S. As you can see, or maybe not, the angel is 4 1/4" tall, 2" deep and 1 1/2" wide.
image_22247.jpg image_22248.jpg image_22249.jpg image_22250.jpg image_22251.jpg image_22252.jpg image_22253.jpg image_22254.jpg
I am also in the process of whittling down my wood pile which consists of many types of wood. For the angel, I decided to use a piece of aspen which was a cutoff scrap from a 2x4 cross support from a pallet. I just happen to be running to the store when I spied these white as snow wood pallets sitting in front of a house up the street. They were used to deliver cabinets to the house undergoing renovations. After my errand, I went up and checked them out. Fully expecting some crap wood or knotty oak, I was thrilled to see they were all aspen. I took 2 out of the three as that was all I could fit in my Honda Element at the time. Besides, the third one wouldn’t have fit by itself as it was about 8 feet long.
A couple of things with this piece of aspen. It has a knot on the top right at the juncture of the left wing. And my little knotty angel has a few cracks at the base on the left side which I hope to carve away. Finally, there are the two nail holes in the left wing which I was fully aware of. But when I did my quick split—a process using an old buck knife and a mallet to split off a small piece from the bigger one rather than cutting with a saw—I though I had cleared the nails. Well, I guess you know where this is going. Yup, took a chunk out of the knife’s edge. Guess that’ll on my list of things to do.
I am also using a few of my Flex-cut carving tools instead of a knife. I have had this idea to use the right and left skew gouge—both 9/16” wide and similar to a #3 profile, 5/8” #3 straight gouge, and a 3/8” #3 straight gouge. So, you can a trend here. My thought is to make similar chips to a knife but rather than putting the pushing force on my increasingly arthritic thumbs while pushing a knife, I want to see how it works for me using tools. The skew gouges are great for doing curved cuts, getting into tight corners. The 5/8 #3 is good for removing wood quickly. The 3/8” #3 is good for general cleanup as I go along. The best part—if one of the tools needs a stropping, I can switch to another rather than stopping. The Flex-cut strop works great with the yellow compound. BTW—I’m not plugging for Flex-cut. It just happens out of my small arsenal, these tools fit the bill. Oh one other thing, the first thing I did was to use consecutively increasing sized v-tools to split the wings before I started carving the body. That was a big help in removing quite a bit if wood.
When I started this carving, I was planning on painting it since there are blemishes in the wood—fill the holes with wood filler, etc. Even had a paint scheme too. But we’ll cross that “rainbow” bridge when I get to it.
In the meantime, I’ll be winging it since I hope to use this as a model for the next 2 or three angels I hope to carve. Enjoy!
BobL
P.S. As you can see, or maybe not, the angel is 4 1/4" tall, 2" deep and 1 1/2" wide.
image_22247.jpg image_22248.jpg image_22249.jpg image_22250.jpg image_22251.jpg image_22252.jpg image_22253.jpg image_22254.jpg
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