Chip Sutherland
01-02-2009, 1:25 PM
Here's my first carved effort from a class I took at Woodcraft. It's a piece of butternut. Never turned it before. It's a bit soft but it worked well enough for carving. I found the Chinese characters via a translation webpage. I typed in the english words and got the symbols back. I think I had to install a new language font, too. I resized them on paper then I went to Joann's and got some tracing paper. Turns out that the red paper worked best. I bought a box of 5 Flexcut tools and 2 separate small V groove tools. Plotted the characters out, blue taped them on the corners, scribbled the tracings and started carving each letter. I know exactly nothing about carving and the class carving expert was usually tied up with other folks in the class so much of what I did was the inspiration pulling me forward. I could visualize the end results. It was a lot of fun. It wasn't that hard. No slips, no wounds. Planning the entry and exit points is where I really learned some things. I think I even impressed the instructors.
I didn't finish it in class so it sat on my messy bench for 2 months. I decided to fill the carving with tinted epoxy. The dying was to cover up the butternut which I thought was just plain ugly. The gold paint on the inside was a spontaneous choice. The lid as you see it is a 'magical save'. I prep'd the letters with sealant thinking I could work the dye around them to leave the red letters visible. Really bad idea. The epoxy absorbed the dye anyway losing all visual details of the letters.
My last ditch effort was to wipe off as much of the wet dye as I could then use alcohol to rub off the rest. Too late. In a last ditch effort I remounted the lid in a jam chuck and taped it, too. I re-turned the top. The result was a wonderful butternut grain with the black dye in the grain. Some of the letters need to be re-carved deeper and re-filled. It's amazing what results when you really screw something up then abandon all caution to save it.
I think the final finish is Waterlox but I don't remember 3 months later. This is one of my best pieces from 2008. Wonder how long it'll take me to follow it up.
I didn't finish it in class so it sat on my messy bench for 2 months. I decided to fill the carving with tinted epoxy. The dying was to cover up the butternut which I thought was just plain ugly. The gold paint on the inside was a spontaneous choice. The lid as you see it is a 'magical save'. I prep'd the letters with sealant thinking I could work the dye around them to leave the red letters visible. Really bad idea. The epoxy absorbed the dye anyway losing all visual details of the letters.
My last ditch effort was to wipe off as much of the wet dye as I could then use alcohol to rub off the rest. Too late. In a last ditch effort I remounted the lid in a jam chuck and taped it, too. I re-turned the top. The result was a wonderful butternut grain with the black dye in the grain. Some of the letters need to be re-carved deeper and re-filled. It's amazing what results when you really screw something up then abandon all caution to save it.
I think the final finish is Waterlox but I don't remember 3 months later. This is one of my best pieces from 2008. Wonder how long it'll take me to follow it up.