Monday 25 January 2021

52 Weeks Of Carving - Week 3 - Muffin Much...

An incomplete one this last week, but I made a start on my next carving. 

My children play what they call "playdough bake off" this is like the bake off on the TV but with playdough. I wanted to make them a box with different themes and tasks inside and decided that having a carving on the top of the box might be nice. 



To start with I drew a simple design of a cupcake on a small block of lime. 


As this is to be a light relief carving I gauged the depth round the outside to rough out the work to. My phone ran out of battery at this point but the next task was to roughly line out the outline with the V tool. 


I then took down the background to a rough level - still needs work but I might texture it yet. The next step will be to add detail to the carving and try to make it look a bit more realistic. Time is tight at the moment as I'm home schooling the children during the day but trying to get out into the workshop each evening if I can (also good to put the heating on in the workshop for a few hours full blast!).

Wednesday 13 January 2021

52 Weeks Of Carving - Week 2 - Tool Box

It's my eldest daughter's birthday at the end of this week and as she loves helping outside and making things we thought it was about time she got some tools of her own. And then she'll need something to carry them in - time to build a tool box! 



I decided that as my daughter loves my wood carvings (she has to, I'm her dad) that I would carve her a design on the sides of the tool box. 

Monday 11 January 2021

3d Printed Battery Mounts

A while ago I posted how much I loved Stealth Battery mounts for keeping my Makita batteries out the way. 

The only downside is that I no longer have enough of them for all my batteries. Luckily my friend has just got a 3d printer - time to ask for a favour! I found some files online and he printed them out. 


Straight off the printer they work perfectly, they don't have to do much other than hold a battery out the way but it does make it so much easier to organise and keep the workshop cleaner. And they didn't use much plastic to print them. 


 He's now going to print me some clamps for my MFT bench tops and then I'll have to think about what's after that! Lol - he's going to regret telling me he has it! 

What do you have that's been 3d printed or would like to see? 

Friday 8 January 2021

52 Weeks Of Carving - Week 1

So to develop my carving I'm trying to make sure I keep practicing little and often. I've set myself the challenge to carve or turn at least once a week. 

A mirror I carved for my wife for Christmas

This doesn't have to be for very long, and doesn't have to be a whole project completed, but ideally be more "craft" than more usual work, but if I manage to combine the two than that's even better (and add it to things I'm selling on Etsy).

Week 1 -

I have decided to make a new workbench for the workshop. Although I love my MFT style workbench (and I plan to make a Paulk Smart Bench fairly soon to add to this), I want a solid top workbench that I can use as a dedicated sharpening bench.
Layout


In my old workshop I had a good set up but that was nearly 10 years ago and I never got round to setting up anything the same in my new one, and as these things always are they move on and methods change and develop. 




I need somewhere I can easily store and set up my grinders, somewhere for my hundreds of sharpening stones and slips and somewhere to store carving chisels in rolls. I figure a 4ft workbench with drawers would be perfect for this. I purchased some 2" (50mm) thick beech for the top, but decided that there was no need to use that timber for the legs as I already had some large chunks of tulip/poplar that would be perfect. 



As it was tulip I decided that I should probably use it as a good excuse to practice a bit more carving. A simple repetitive design is really medative to work on.




So with the frame assembled and the top on the bench is far from finished but it is useable and I like the look of the legs.

When I make the drawers I plant to carve the drawer fronts, I have some lime that is wide enough so just need to decide on some patterns to carve out, this should provide lots of opportunity to get some more of my 52 weeks of carving in the bag! 

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