tributesinwood

An Ear for Cattle Herding

This morning’s activities involved nursing a sore back, cleaning several Rosie “droppings” from the backyard and starting into the ears for Buford.  I didn’t enjoy the sore back part nor the backyard part ( Rosie did ) but I did enjoy the carving part.  And my back is feeling a little better.

I made a fairly quick template out of paper just to get the general shape of the ear that would eventually curl around one arm and fall just short of the six-shooter.  After transferring a front and side view of this template to a piece of basswood ( thanks, Emily, for the basswood ), I rough cut it on the bandsaw and then did some minimal shaping with some carving tools.

Following this step, I went back to the tried-and-true method of putting pencil lead on the arm, placing the ear in place, having the pencil lead transfer to the ear and then carving away the pencil lead.  Because the fitting was such a drastic removal of wood, I was able to eye-ball much of the material that had to be removed and resort to the pencil lead only when the final fitting was needed.  Again, I used the Typhoon carbide bit on the Foredom tool to remove the material quickly and then followed up with carving knives and chisels to do some final fitting.

I still have the detailing to do, and, in particular, figure out if the ear is going to need to fold around the cedar rail that this little hound will be leaning against…but, here’s the general shape.  On to the other ear…

Gluing the Arms on Buford

I don’t have a lot to report on Buford’s progress other than that I’ve fitted both arms, now with gloves, and have epoxied the arms in place.  Recall that I had already done a lot of fitting of the arms by using the method of marking the mating surfaces with pencil lead and carving away the high points.  I also made sure that all of the wrinkles that were to go into the sleeves were there prior to gluing the arms in place so that I wouldn’t be trying to carve into tight spots.

This week I’ll get to sawing out the ears and shaping them around the arms.  My plan is to have the one ear go over Buford’s right arm and fall inside the holster so that the six-shooter doesn’t get hidden in any way.  Should look nice.

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.

Some Detail for the Cowboy Hound

I spent a bit of time on the Cowboy Hound tonight and was able to provide a bit more detail around his legs and body.

I slimmed down the legs quite a bit with some wrinkles here and there where his knee would bend.  I also added a bit of detail to his neckerchief although I want to slim it down a bit more before I’m finished.  His gun belt overlaps his belt for his pants and you can see a bit of this on the back of the carving.  I also removed quite a bit of bulk from his upper back so that his elbows appear to stretch back further.  This will be important when I make the upper rail of the fence that he’ll be leaning against.

Speaking of the arms, I just have the one arm with any amount of detail at this point.  Right now they are only attached by a dowel and some glue from a glue gun.  I’ll detail both in a bit more and then permanently glue them in place for some final fitting and detailing.

When I was in Hamilton at the carving show, I took a close look at some of the scenes that people had constructed from copper shim stock ( very thin copper sheets ) to make blades of grass and leaves as part of the bases on which their carvings sat.  I think I’ll try this with this little Hound and have some blades of grass shooting up beside the fence posts.

He’s coming along.

Attaching the Arms

I drew up a bit of a pattern for this carving when I began that I’ve used for guidance and included in it a front and side view of where I felt the arms would land.  Remember, this little guy is going to be leaning against a fence and will need his arms, or at least his elbows, projected up and back a bit to rest against the top fence rail.

Although I had the rough pattern, I still needed to do a bit of experimenting to get the arm lengths and angles right.  I ended up taking some wooden coffee stir sticks that I had in the shop ( you see…it’s worthwhile to recycle! ) and pinning the joints with a sliver of wood to see exactly how the centre-line of the arm would fall.

This whole exercise took me back 35 or so years to my engineering schooling…we used to have to draw the actual size and orientation of a linkage or mechanism just based on a front and side view.  This method was called “Finding the True Length” and used draughting methods to achieve this.  Some of you older engineering types out there will be showing your age if you admit to remembering this!  My stir stick method wouldn’t be viewed as good engineering practice, but it worked for me!

After I glued the pinned stir sticks together, I re-drew both the side and front views of the arm to get close to the right size that I needed.  Then I headed to the bandsaw.

Here’s how it looked with the initial bandsaw cuts and how it looks now with a first pass at providing some fitting and detailing. Check back in a couple of days and I should have the other arm completed.