Thursday, April 15, 2010

Bugle

End March 2010

Time to carve: 2.5 hours
Finishing: 1.5 hour

Delicate does not begin to describe this project. I had to pick wood that would not crack or break while I carved out the fine details of this slide. I decided on maple because of it's strength (and because I had just bought a big bag of the stuff). I roughed out the outline of the bugle and then drilled several holes in the middle to make roughing out the inside easier.

Without access to a real bugle, I had no idea how the tubes ran. I began to cut but quickly discovered that I had transposed the drawing. Yikes! Now what? I put down the piece for a couple of days trying to decide if I should start over. The solution came to me while I was in the shower one morning. Why not reverse the drawing on the computer screen then print it out. Once I had this, the pipes were easy to follow and as a result my slide is a mirror image of what the original drawings were. Lots of sanding on this one! Finished with gold spray paint I could have stopped there but the resulting slide just didn't look right. (Too shiny) I wondered what would happen if I sprayed it with the water based poly I usually use. Would the poly react the paint somehow? The result gave the bugle a weathered look...Sweet!

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