tributesinwood

Change is Good

Well I changed my mind a bit on the look of old Buford the Ranch-hand.  The detail of his pants, and in particular his boots, had me rethink how his front paws should look.  He just seemed to need leather gloves.  So I cut away the little rounded paws that I had originally intended and have roughed in some leather gloves.  I can picture them being a soiled tan look.  Truth is that his big ears will soon drape over his arms and a bit of the gloves anyway…but I’m enjoying the carving and we all will know that if we look hard at the carving and at the right angles, we’ll see some interesting detail in behind those ears.

I drew a quick pattern on a piece of scrap basswood making sure that the grain of the wood ran in the direction of the glove so that it would have good strength from breakage.  Of course, there was a top view pattern and a side view pattern so two cuts were necessary on the bandsaw at a 90 degree angle to one another.

I left the last cut at the cuff end of the glove until the last moment so that I could use the remaining wood as a bit of a “handle” to hold onto while I did the carving.  I then turned to the Foredom tool with a Typhoon bit on the end to rough away the majority of the wood and get the basic shape that I was looking to get.  I’ve harped enough about ensuring that you use lots of protective equipment when using these very aggressive Typhoon bits…even at slow speeds it’ll make a mess of your finger or arm if you inadvertently touch against it.  Respect these carbide bits.

The final rough version of the gloves and arms with some knife carving and fitting is looking pretty good.  I need to add detail to the gloved fingers and refine the arms a bit more before I start fitting on the ears.  But, I think that as a next step I’ll carve that six-shooter and holster of his just because it’ll be fun.

It’s the beginning of March Break here and I know that Emily will be visiting next week for a few days.  She’s been doing some crocheting recently so check out her mspremiseconclusion blog listed at the side of this website for her latest pattern designs.  Her creations are a bit out of the ordinary…keep in mind the geeky engineering background.