This Time of Year! Busy Busy Busy!

Sorry there's not more activity being posted by Thomp and me. This time of year, I know we all get bogged down in all kinds of stuff to do. Ol' Thomps recovering well, but I am sure his eyes are still a bit "googley", and his energy level probably still sucks. But hes got a good excuse. Me, my energy level sucks cause I'm old and lazy. At least that's what my wife thinks.

And, I still think that this time of year kinds collapses in on its self. What I mean is that the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas gets shorter and shorter as we get older. Now its down to just several weeks. I also think that there are 2 Fridays in each week. It seems every time I look up it's Friday.

I still have no idea what I am getting wife and other folks for Christmas. Glad my wife takes care of shopping for the kids and grand kids. I do have a whole bunch of folks to get carvings done for. Just little things, but they do take time.

Enough of me making excuses for the poor showing of new items on the blog. I will try to get moving.....soon!

BAH HUMBUG!.......................................................Merry Christmas (really)

Carvin The Tiny Santa!

I have decided that I had better put something up on the blog. Anything! So I decided to carve a tiny Santa head. A real quick and "dirty" one. The carving part of this tiny one took about 4 minutes. Hey I said quick and dirty! Really if I took a few more minutes it'd be a lot cleaner. But when viewed in ones hand this little fella looks clean.

The various techniques used to carve reasonably small items is no secret to a lot of carvers. But if you're rather new to carving small, they may be a secret to you. I know that I did not have any idea how one could carve small stuff. Take the small Santa head for instance! Most new carvers say they have a hard time carving the eyes and nose of the face. The first "secret" to carving small Santa heads is that the eyes don't matter so much. Here's a few things to consider when carving a small Santa head:

a. Carve the Santa on the end of a piece of wood you can hold, then cut the carved head off when completed. In this example I use a 1/4" x 1/4" x 6" piece.

TIP: Be sure that your knife is sharp. You don't have to have a "small" knife to carve the small stuff, just a sharp one.

TIP: Make a habit of using slicing cuts when you can. Don't just push the blade into the wood.

b. Carve Santa's cap first, then "carve the head to fit the cap.

TIP: Make the cap "fit" over the head. Make it look like there is actually head in the cap.

c. Carve the nose next. Be careful, the nose can come off the face real easy. Start by cutting and removing a small wedge out that leaves the bottom of the nose. Next make a straight in stab stop cuts for the sides on the nose.

TIP: If the nose does start to lift off, it's Super Glue time. I just put a drop over the entire nose area.
d. Carve the eye areas next. Cut and remove a wedge from each side of the nose. The three sides of the wedge are the side of the nose, top of the eye area, and top of the cheek.

e. Carve the top and the bottom of Santa's mustache. This starts with curved stop cuts that define the top and bottom of the mustache.

f. Define the bottom of the cheeks/top of the mustache by removing a sliver of wood at the top of the mustache. Define the bottom of the mustache by slicing up to the bottom of the mustache.

g. Finish Santa up by carving the bottom of the beard. Cut off the bottom corners of the nose to make it round. Taper the nose from the tip to the bridge of the nose.

h. I'll very carefully go over the head with a tooth brush, to remove what "fuzzies" that I can.

i. I'll cut the carving from the stick at this point.

j. If I'm to paint it, I'll stick a quilting pin in the bottom to hold while I paint.

"Shoot" give it a try. I know you'll be surprised at how well you'll do.

Hang In There Folks!

Hang in there folks. Ol' Thomp is in the hospital, and I'm buried in work. I am putting the finishing touches on the Cheetah carving with a rotary tool, tutorial. It's all most ready.

I did get hijacked into helping clean the house for the Thanksgiving "feast". Shopping, Dayton Carving show, demonstrations at the gift shop, plus a couple of commissions; took up more time than I thought they would. But all that is over now. Well not the commissions!

We'll get Thomp out of the hospital and back to his computer we'll be alright.

Thanks for hanging in there.

Tom H

Carving With A Rotary Tool

I know that there are some carving purists out there, and that's fine. I know that there are some who will only carve wood with a knife, and that's fine too. And there are some that will only carve with mallet and chisels, that's great. Then there is the whole bunch that use power. Hells bells then there's chain saw carvers, and some who use hatchets and machetes. Do we want to forget about the dynamite that was used to rough out the faces on Mt. Rushmore! There's carvers of toothpicks, Cottonwood bark, Cypress knees, pine knots, and peach pits. Well yeah! then there is wood.

I some times use a rotary tool and a sanding drum to carve the animals for the Noah's Arks that I make. Some will say, "no! you don't carve them, you GRIND them". To those who say this, I'll not get into an argument. But I am carving; so there.

I am preparing a tutorial slide presentation of how I use the rotary tool (Dremel) to carve a Cheetah. Maybe I'll title it THE 5 MINUTE CHEETAH. I'll post it when it's completed. Yep! I said 5 minutes; but I may have to change it to.........3 minutes. Greed made me learn to do the animals real fast. Several years ago I was given the opportunity to make 5 Noah's Arks with 18 pairs of animals each. The only trouble was that the request was made at Thanksgiving, and the arks had to be done in time for Christmas. The requester was the wife of a well known music celebrity, and the prices were, well they were good. I couldn't say no! So, I learned to use the rotary tool very quickly.

Stay tuned.

Fun Challenge - I Took!

A while back someone challenged me to carve 5 gnomes to fit inside a one inch square. Here's my response to the challenge. Seven gnomes on a quarter.

This is a lot easier than it looks. It's fun, while still a challenge. Give it a try, you'll be surprised.

CARVING SWAP! cancelled!

Carving contest canceled due to lack of interest !

Rules of the contest are listed in other posts but these are the main ones:

TIME FRAME: If you are interested, you must let us know by Halloween (Oct. 31, 2009) . The carvings must be completed and mailed during the week of: Dec. 1, 2009. This gives you one (1) month to complete the carving.

Ya got nine (9) more days to sign up. But from over 50 followers, if there arn't at least 20 signed up, we'll have to cancel the swap.

Well folks it's 2 Nov and we got only 10 signed up members...

1. Hal Allen
2. scarnes
3. Kent perry
4. Robert perry
5. terry maker
6. ed hullett
7. rice-grinder jim
8. herb jakers
9. bill Anderson
10.Chris sea-more

Hope I didnt miss the other 10 in comments..

We left the contest hang in there until after the weekend hoping to allow it to gain interest on its own, but to no avail. And to be fair to me and Tom h. we got to kill this one!

Exacto Knife! (Custom Handle)

Don't know if any of you all have seen this kind of a set up before. One of the fellows I carve with (Bill Bauer) turned this handle for his Exacto knife. He's turning some that are a bit fatter, for me, and some others. More and more carvers (especially bark carvers) seem to be using the Exacto knife for some applications.

If anyone is interested in some particulars let me know. Bill will have some at the Dayton show, in November.

SIGN UP! For The SWAP!

Hey! I didn't mean to scare you all away from a simple little carving swap. All I did was describe what might happen if any participant failed to complete their swap. The name of this blog is BEGINNERS CARVING CORNER AND BEYOND. Actually, the "AND BEYOND" part was added.

If anyone thinks of themselves as a beginner, please don't let that keep you from swapping. This blog is dedicated to beginners. Shoot I've only been carving for about 5 years and consider myself an advanced beginner.

A typical carving in an exchange/swap such as this one will be a smaller carving 2 to 6 inches in height, and taking anywhere from a couple of hours to 7 or 8 hours to complete. Seein how the Holiday Season is about upon us, a Christmas tree ornament could be a real consideration.

Anyway, we need to see some more participants. Shoot! the carved Christmas tree ornament exchange on the WCI Board has the participants carving around 24 to send out. We're only talkin one (1) carving in this exchange. Plus, you got two (2) chances to win a really nice carving knife.

Swap In Danger of Being Canceled

OK guy's and gal's, I'm sittin here thinkin probably what Ol' Thomps sittin there thinkin. And that's that nobody wants to swap a carving for a carving. Well, we thought that earlier, but then added two hand made carvin knives to the swap. These knives are made from vintage German straight razors. You know the kinda knives I'm talkin about. Those that sell for $50 and up, (way up sometimes).

Ya got nine (9) more days to sign up. But from over 50 followers, if there arn't at least 20 signed up, we'll have to cancel the swap. Either that or I'll sign up Ol' Thomp, and he'll sign up me; then we'll draw our own names for the knives..

CARVING SWAP!

ATTENTION: Carving swap

FOR WHO: Followers of Beginning Carvers Corner

BY WHO: Beginners Carvers Corner (Thomp & Tom H)

WHAT IT IS: We will pair up interested followers. Each member of the pair will complete a carving and mail it to their swap partner.

HOW IT WORKS: If you are a follower and are interested just let us know. If you are not a follower, become a follower. You will have to let us know your name, address, and e mail address. Absolutely no Anonymous! We will make up the pairs, and send the names and addresses out.

TIME FRAME: If you are interested, you must let us know by Halloween (Oct. 31, 2009) . The carvings must be completed and mailed during the week of: Dec. 1, 2009. This gives you one (1) month to complete the carving.

CARVINGS: The carvings must be in good taste, can be any style, painted or natural, and should take between 2 and 8 hours to complete. They must be signed and dated.


TWIST: This swap will also be a contest. To become considered in the drawing, You will want to take and send us a photo of your carving. We will post the photos and everyone can vote for their


favorite. The follower who receives the most votes will win this hand made Straight razor carving knife.
(cherry rough out)

(Lace wood rough / detail)

Knife Specs: 2 vintage German straight razor reground into professional quality woodcarving knives, one larger detail knife and one rough out knife.
1st place chooses among 2 knives, 2nd place will get the 2nd knife...

CAUTION: If you sign up for this swap, you are obligating yourself to complete and send a carving to your swap partner. Failure to complete and mail a carving to your swap partner is an extremely serious matter. In most Internet swaps such an offender is referred to as a "Flake", as in flaked out. Some swaps take this so serious, that they have taken extreme steps to ensure that all participants complete the swap. Specially trained teams of thugs with secret cells in every state may be called in to "thump" the offending "Flake".

REMEMBER: All you have to do to be a part of this swap is be a follower, and tell us you want to participate, and send us the required information.