Hungry Frog

Late Late March - Early April 2010

Time to carve: 4 hours
Finishing: 1 hour

I like slides, sometimes, that don't require a loop to be attached to the back of it. The neckerchief simply passes through the body of the slide. Why? Well these slides tend to be a bit more tricky to carve and the Hungry Frog is a good example of this. Made from maple, for strength, the hole in the center is not straight through but take a curve following the curve of the back of the frog.

I hated to paint this one once it was sanded because it was such a great looking natural wood slide but it would be hard to see what it was at a distance. Painted with craft paints and coated with a couple of coats of poly

Artist's Palette

End March 2010

Time to carve: .5 hours
Finishing: 1 hour

One of the easiest slides I have made thus far! I had some thin pile wood scrap around
(from another project) and a quick trip around with a jig saw did the trick. Drill the hole and then elongate it with knife to accept the brush. I ended up having to do some carving on the brush too to make it all fit together correctly. Some dabs of color and a couple of coats of poly to finish it off.

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!

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.

Just Call Him Sorrowful

Mid March 2010

Time to carve: 1.5 hours
Finishing: 1.5 hour

I wasn't too sure about this one... it seemed too easy. Well I started to make this slide out of pine but it didn't work out so well because the wood kept giving me raw edges in certain spots. The second one was carved out of bass wood and it was a beautiful day. I don't mean just because the project came together, but a really nice day outside with temps in the 70's. After a long cold winter, a day like this one shouldn't be wasted. No...not a sick day or impromptu vacation day, just a lunch hour sitting in the sun and carving. Anyway, the head was carved and the ears were glued on after painting with craft paints. A couple of coats of poly finished it off.

Riding Quirt

Mid March 2010

Time to carve: 0 hours
Leather work: 2 hours
Finishing: 0 hour

And now for something completely different...no carving or woodwork. The only thing necessary to do with the wooden dowel was to cut it to size and glue the leather to it. Having a pattern I make out of paper and a good bag of leather scrap from Micheals this slide came together very quickly one Saturday morning. But unlike most of my other slides... No coats of poly.

Walrus

Late Feb. 2010

Time to carve: 3 hours
Other work: 1.5
Finishing: 1.5 hour

This slide has special significant for our family. While looking for some wood for "the herd", I contacted my mother-in-law to see if my father-in-law had any cherry. While he did not have any, there was lots of other good hard woods there including some black walnut cut from the family farm before he was born. Bob made many things from this wood and brought it with him no matter where he and his family were transferred to and since his passing the wood has been slowly given out to each of the children's families. I knew the rich dark brown color would make the walrus come to life without having to resort to any stain or paint. Carving black walnut take time, patience, and several sharp blades. I must say at this point that black walnut is the toughest wood I have ever tried to carve because it is really hard. Once I had carved the head it was time to work on the tusks. I looked a a couple of different kinds of wood for this but nothing seemed the right color (without resorting to paint). What I ended up using was some pieces of white plastic molding cut, sanded, and bent to the right size and shape. Following the instructions, the whiskers are made from toothbrush bristles but I wonder if when the original was made if the bristles were as narrow a diameter as these were. (Come to think of it, I could not think of doing this part without Crazy Glue ether.) As for the eyes, well I did break down and paint those with some black paint. A couple of coats of poly finish this off. One thing I would do differently if I was to make another. The whiskers would have been done after the poly since the poly collected on the bristles like droplets of water .