Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Blacksmith's Anvil


End March 2010

Time to carve: 2.5 hours
Finishing: 1.5 hour

It's funny, when I go looking for wood it always seems to be in the strangest places. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Vermont on business at one of our sites and stopped into a local hardware store. It is an odd mix of a regular hardware store and kind of a department store rolled into one. I always am amazed when I go there because there is always something I don't expect and this was no exception. I was looking in the handy craft section at some wood they had for carving. Small bags of balsa, basswood, and one of assorted hardwoods. The biggest problem I had was with the price because it seem a lot to pay when I could only find one or two pieces in each bag that would be worth carving as a slide. (The rest of the pieces in the bag were too small or thin.) On the way out of the store, there were large 40 pound bags of firewood for wood stoves. It caught my eye because it was all planed pieces about 1 to 2 inches thick and various lengths/widths. The best part...it was all kinds of hardwood for $6.95!

Right off the top of this bag I found a great piece of maple to make this slide with. I did a bit of sawing with the bandsaw to rough it out and a really sharp knife to shape it. The hammer was made out of some scrap I had cut off and glued on after the whole thing was painted with craft paints. A couple of coats of poly finish it off. There is something that was very pleasing making this slide. Perhaps it was the pleasing lines of the anvil or maybe it was knowing I got a great deal.

2 comments:

  1. Hey Jim, I buy my carving wood (primarily basswood) at Rocklers. It is incredibly inexpensive compared to those basswood kits.

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  2. Jim? Thanks for the lead ... I got it bookmarked - Bill

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