User Profile

[Brian T]

Getting up from any big city would nearly be a lost cause. In the little places, whoever is in the lead needs to know to drive like Hello to make a space for the followers.

Somewhere on the internet is an extended video of a tsunami flooding some part of Japan.
It just keeps coming...

[Brian T]

Many of the small west coast communities here have road signs directing people to high ground.
You just jump in the car and go. Emergency Services will tell everybody when it's safe to go home.

[Brian T]

Well, better safe than sorry. Advice here on the coast is to stay away from the waterfront.

[Brian T]

There's a tsunami alert for the west coast of British Columbia but if anything had hit, we would have heard about it by now. I guess with a volcanic eruption, the threat is ongoing.

My kids are no more than a couple of miles from tidewater on a river delta of very low elevation.
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[Brian T]

I think that's the first step = settle on three styles of carvings that you really like. Styles that you know you can manage, economically. No 40' west coast totem poles for next week. Begin with Randy's suggestions (#6). Welcome to the exploration.

One of those three will hold more...

[Brian T]

I see a team of Walkers? Next, you need to carve the buggy....

[Brian T]

Very soft 4B pencils for low pressure and graphite paper, not carbon paper (greasy).
An artist's graphite stick is even better.

China markers, grease pencils, don't soak in at all, many colors and really easy to shave off.

I can't tell by looking, how absorbent the...

[Brian T]

I've carried a SAK Prince Model for decades. Never been much for whittling but for most other (kitchen) jobs, I couldn't ask for more.

If I could pick only one carving knife to carry with wood, projects and sharpening stuff, it would be the big Kestrel 'C' bend crooked knife. A 'pocket...

[Brian T]

What is your inventory of sharpening supplies at the moment?
Is there a particular method, a technique, that you like to use?
I do only freehand sharpening, no mechanical methods or assists, so far.
There are many threads here in the WCI archives going back for years on sharpening...

[Brian T]

Linden is the common name for Tilia platyphyllos (rare in the wild) across Britain and Europe. More than likely they have a hybrid with T. europaea.

Basswood is the common name in North America for T. americana, more than likely a mix of several species (hardness differences?).
...

[Brian T]

Finish it. Ignore fuzzies and blemishes. Learn the wood. Learn how you want to see the movement, the postures, the clothing and positions of the dancers.

[Brian T]

I worked with a guy from Ghana.
He said they used teak for telephone poles because nobody would eat it.

[Brian T]

Loveit. The pose is what they do. The paint is right, even the red chop on the back of the head.
We have lots of them here in summers, I suspect they are quite territorial. Maybe every 1/2 mile on logging roads. The flap-and-glide flight is like no other bird. Do they migrate for winter?

[Brian T]

Like it or not, you have to learn some wood anatomy. Trees present "reaction wood" in their branches. There are extra cell wall layers in the wood of branches. "Tension" wood in angiosperms and "compression" wood in the softwoods.

If and when the branches...

[Brian T]

Good. Not many of my carvings wind up outdoors in the weather. Some Ravens.
I've done them up with black house paint that appears to weather well.
I like Randy's suggestion for showing off the wood.

All the diamond willow canes that I use have had 4 coats of MinWax Tung Oil...

[Brian T]

Pick a process and learn it well. I was taught freehand sharpening and I decided that I was going to become very good at it. I am. Besides body posture and movement, the key point for me was to learn the bevel angle that I was supposed to maintain. I had been just hopelessly wrong.

...

[Brian T]

My D2 and her family live in the Vancouver area. They have been hit but good this past month.
But, she's no stranger to very cold winters as a kid. Hubby from the high country of snows in Britain.
It slumps pretty quick as it metamorphoses, not even knee deep in my front yard any more,6"...

[Brian T]

-25C (-10F) again yesterday. By some miracle, we got enough juice past the dead battery to get the Burb up and running. Synthetic jet turbine oil lube is wonderful. Got a new $210.00 battery on warranty, no less. Delightful Christmas prezzie. Supposed to warm up a lot and stay up in less than a...

[Brian T]

The "swirls" are actually snails. That gives you some idea of my walking speed.
I like the multiple woods. Makes an interesting visual feature.

[Brian T]

Good paint and red eyes. Just ever so slightly uneven to be realistic and believable.
You can't ruffle my feathers with that one.