Inside wood

This is just a couple of the 35,000 slides in the InsideWood database of images showing anatomical details of different trees.

Jack´s Knife

I wanted to make Jack a knife for his birthday, and could not be bothered to make my own blade so so I ordered these Mora blanks from Moonraker Knives on internet. I used the smaller blade for this particular knife as it is the same size as on the Erik Frost knives that we usually use for whittling.

Sawed of a bit of the tang.

Had a long cut-off of walnut with one side that was very flat so I cut two bits, left the flat side untouched, and rounded off the rest of it. I made a score in the shape of the tang on each bit so as to fit the flat sides perfectly around the blade.

I could not find any ready-made bolster that fitted the Mora blade so I made one myself out of aluminium. Needed to be sawed and polished so probably a hell making one out of harder metals without machinery.

The bits were glued together with Araldite in a vice and the handle whittled into a proper shape after it was all set.

The handle was easier to finish off and sandpaper when there was some masking-tape on the blade to protect it.

The past few days the weather has been really hot and Perrier tastes the best from a can so there has been quite a few of those lying around the kitchen. Used one of the can bottoms, where the aluminium is a bit thicker, to cut out a litter anchor J to be inset into the wood.

After it is all sandpapered and oiled.

I also carved a little face at the end of the knife.

Time: a lazy weekend

Beers: no beers, 2 can Perrier

Fifth and Sixth

As mentioned earlier, our fifth and sixth meetings were inspired by the Kachina dolls. Although the earliest Kachina dolls are basically rudimentary carved flat bits of wood, a lot of the later ones are decorated with feathers, textiles, and fur so as to resemble clothing, or emphasize frightening features. For us some hair-weave from the local wig-shop and a couple of stuffed animals from a charity shop provided some good substitutes to work with. The usual big jar of pickles was on the 5th meeting exchanged for a buffet of biscuits and for the 6th meeting we built a coconut altar out of peoples contributions of tropical fruit.

Leila´s snake

Figure by Urara

Hair-pin by Shiraz

Some sign by Oscar

Coffin and alien by Lyle

Kiwi by John

Bone and... eh..something by Jacob

Lion by Gwennan

Amy´s camel

Cut of the week (from 6th meeting)

Ksenia got the first decent cut (above), but it could hardly be matched by the one Shelly got a bit later where she cut off a solid chunk of skin which landed on the handle of the knife (below).

5th Meeting

Photocopy hand-outs for 5th meeting

Lyle´s shrunken head

Shelly´s bust

Pete started on a head

Leila made a ring and had probably the cut of the week (hidden by the plaster) as she stabbed herself quite badly with a crap chisel from a pound-store.

Jamie´s unfinished double link

Jacob´s second attempt of the evening. Before this one he made some alien-walrus he was not happy with. Dunno where it´s gone.

Gwennan defaced an unwanted present. It was made
out of some weird white wood that turned out very cool.

Meave and Ben T in one of their successful collaborations.