Sunday, January 2, 2011

Bull Frog

End Dec. 2010

Time to carve: 2.5 hours
Finishing: 1.5


A day off,a piece of really hard maple and a lot of fun to carve. I've been looking forward to carving this slide for a while because one of my favorite memories as a boy was the pond across the street from my house. Oh yeah, filled with bull frogs jumping, croaking and sunning themselves by day and the peepers by night. Once the piece was carved, the next fun part was painting it. I started with a light coat of light green, and then used darker and darker washes of green. The last coat was a wash of brown paint and all the different washes really give this some depth. The underside is painted an off white like a real frog. A couple of coats of poly finish it off.

Sioux Moccasins

Mid Dec. 2010

Time to carve: 2.5 hours
Finishing: 2

With new band saw blade in place, I roughed this slide out and set forth carving. When finished and sanded, I hated to even think about painting this slide. I was so good looking in it's natural state. But once again, I wanted to stay true to the original article and began to paint. The more I painted the more interesting the slide became and when it was finished it was really something! A couple of coats of poly later and its ready to wear.

Fourth of July

Mid Dec. 2010

Time to carve: ,5 hours
Finishing: 1.5

My band saw blade broke and while I was waiting for a replacement to come in, I found this slide in my pile. OK, I don't need anything fancy for this one, just a dowel, my knee (to break the dowel with), thin plywood,and a sharp knife. It didn't take much to cut out the parts and glue them together. Painted with craft paints and finished with poly,

Sky Geek from Mars



Early Dec. 2010

Time to carve: 2 hours
Finishing: 1.5

"If you can't whittle this one, your just not a whittler..." wrote Whittlin Jim. Well, sure it was easy to carve but on the other hand ...

Carved from maple with the teeth carved separately and glued on later. The antenna were cut from 1/8 dowel and the ends are wooden beads. All the parts were painted with craft paints before gluing them together. Now when it came to finishing the slide, I set it up to spray it with poly but it slipped from holder breaking off one of the antenna. AAarrragghhh! Now what I thought! Drill it out and redo the antenna or try to glue back together. I had nothing to lose by gluing it and could always go the other route if it didn't look right. Glued, sanded and repainted in place, the slide was ready to finish again. Two coats of poly and a new respect for the fragile nature of the slide.