tributesinwood

Lucy of the “Hound Trio”

This is going to be a fairly ambitious carving of what I’m calling “The Hound Trio” for a new acquaintance and owner/lover of Basset Hounds.  One of the hounds will be standing and “conversing” with a little squirrel friend, another will be howling dramatically and a third will be trying to get some shut-eye with all the commotion around.

Here’s a very roughed-in version of “Lucy”, the squirrel lover.  I call this stage of a dog carving the “pig stage”, as I really think they look more like pigs than dogs at this point.  But, I make sure that changes.  I wonder if I tried to carve a pig, would it go through a dog stage?  Not sure.

The roughing is done with the blank that I cut out earlier on the bandsaw and a “Typhoon” carbide cutter on a Foredom tool.  If you are not familiar with a Foredom tool, it’s much like a Dremel tool with a flexible shaft.  The carbide tip cuts very quickly and leaves a rough surface.  What is nice about it is that you can fairly quickly smooth out a general shape that you can later detail and shape with knives and chisels.  A word of caution even though I know that I’m repeating myself from an earlier post…these cutters are very aggressive and you absolutely must wear protective clothing including a leather apron and heavy sleeves, gloves and eye protection.  One slip and one touch of this cutter on any part of your body is bad news fast.

This will be an enjoyable project and it’s nice to get started.