tributesinwood

Some Additions

Things are moving along although I haven’t put that much time into the carving as of late.

I did manage to make a base from red oak.  It’s a couple of inches thick and I simply cut out a circle on the bandsaw and then used a router to add an edge at both the top and bottom.  I like to add a little edge to undercut the bottom of the bases as I think it just makes it look nicer when sitting on a table.

After staining and applying a few satin urethane coatings, I applied about an 1/8″ of white glue over the top almost like you’d put icing on a cake.  I then lightly pressed in about a 1/4″ or more of sawdust…who doesn’t have lots of sawdust laying around the shop?

When that was dry, I brushed away the loose sawdust to find that the glue made quite a bit of the sawdust look “wetted”, which I didn’t like.  So, I sprayed a coat of aerosol adhesive onto the sawdust base and then laid another 1/8″ of sawdust on top of that.  When that had dried, the sawdust looked dry and just the way I wanted it.

Out of a scrap piece of basswood, I carved the beaver’s project…a maple leaf.  And,  of course, on the bark I carved a smooth section and burned in 150th, representing this year’s 150th birthdate of our nation.  A small groove gouge made all of the markings on the bark.

Everything is epoxied in place now with a couple of wood screws also holding the two pieces onto the base.  Next step is to get a nameplate made up and to add a few larger wood chips here and there.