[Cornish Treespirit]

Greetings from a miserable West Penwith. I have just spent the weekend at Carnglaze Caverns at a craft fair and was told about this website by a good friend of mine (Hi Dave). I have been carving Tree Spirits for about three years now and have just bought a bandsaw (clarke cbs355) to try other projects.
I have carved 8 large tree spirits which now surround a lake at my local (ish) Country Park near Camborne. I am looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into this forum and learning as much as possible from all you other folks. On that note does anyone have any suggestions for an easy bandsaw project?
Surprisingly I have just made a v tool a half round gouge, a veiner, and a straight chisel out of wood so I can do workshops with kids. My first workshop being in October. I've tried the tools out on a bar of soap and they work brilliantly. It's amazing what you can do with bits of dowling..
I shall post a few pics of my work when I've sorted out how to do that with my new camera.
All the best
Craig Harris; wood crafter

[DreamingDragonDesigns]

Cornish Treespirit, on Jul 7 2008, 09:52 AM, said:

Greetings from a miserable West Penwith. I have just spent the weekend at Carnglaze Caverns at a craft fair and was told about this website by a good friend of mine (Hi Dave). I have been carving Tree Spirits for about three years now and have just bought a bandsaw (clarke cbs355) to try other projects.
I have carved 8 large tree spirits which now surround a lake at my local (ish) Country Park near Camborne. I am looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into this forum and learning as much as possible from all you other folks. On that note does anyone have any suggestions for an easy bandsaw project?
Surprisingly I have just made a v tool a half round gouge, a veiner, and a straight chisel out of wood so I can do workshops with kids. My first workshop being in October. I've tried the tools out on a bar of soap and they work brilliantly. It's amazing what you can do with bits of dowling..
I shall post a few pics of my work when I've sorted out how to do that with my new camera.
All the best
Craig Harris; wood crafter

Interesting work Craig.

Welcome to the forum.

(You might want to go back and read the message at the top of this forum page about image size. Amazingly enough, there are actually still people on dial-up and low bandwidth modems on here.)

LJ

[Janel]

Hi Craig,

Welcome to The Carving Path forum. I have enjoyed looking at this lively piece of wood and its tree spirit. The form of the wood is like that of a joyful dancer, and the flow of the hair and beard add to that lightness of spirit. What is the size of this piece, and what wood did you use?

Thank you for posting this piece. I have added a detail from the original photo so we can see the eyes and face better.

Could you show us a photo of the wooden tools you made for the workshop with children? This is a very thoughtful idea, and will bring knowledge to the young ones safely. Carving soap with the right sorts of tools! In second grade we used a table knife with soap. I don't use a table knife now in the studio, I wonder what such an exposure the right sort of looking and working tools might do for the budding artists?

Janel

[Don Barnhill]

Hi Craig,
Welcome to the carving path. You are right, there is much to learn here and the people are great.

I like your woodspirits as I carve them sometimes myself.

Great idea, the wooden tools. I instructed some local scouts in carving and we used ivory soap and mostly table knives to carve a turtle. All the scouts got their carving badges so it went well.

Don

[Davey]

Hi Craig,
Big welcome to you. Glad that you made it on to the forum. As you can see there are lots of very talanted people here and will all give you as much help as they can.
Kind regards
Dave

[Janel]

Yes, we do have much to offer, but so far no one has offered anything about band saw projects. I don't have a band saw, though my husband wants me to acquire one . They scare me, but I think it is a tool that could be useful to me. I would then have to find something to do that would replace the aerobic exercise of sawing!

What did you have in mind for band saw projects?

Janel

[magnus homestead]

Hello Craig,

Welcome to the forum! I think I've seen some of this fellow's friends up in my woods .
I will post a couple of photos of one use of the band saw for cutting out a small figure from a block of bass wood. It is a widely used technique with general wood carvers and there must be loads of better photos than I have already out there.
Janel - the bandsaw is very safe if used properly, but is sort of sneaky as it is so quiet and smooth. It can lull one into complacency and then give you a nasty cut if you reach into it's path.
Thanks for sharing,
Magnus