Australian Antler Carvings

[Duncs]

Hello All,

Its been a while since I posted anything, Ive been busy trekking around the countryside. Spent a couple of weeks in New Zealand, and was amazed by the amount of carvings for sale. I met a man at the Nelson markets who does some amazing works and recommended him to this site, These carvings I have done since then and are the first I have ever done in Deer antler. I'm new to staining altogether and owe it all to previous topic searches on TCP, So thank you all you TCP members for all your wonderful knowledge

[Tony N]

_{nice work hope you enjoyed you trip to new zeland}

[Dan]

I like the frog and the lizard got a few antlers that i have been thinking of experimenting with. thought to use the main part for knife handles and the tines for carving stuff like fish and lizards.

[Duncs]

Loved New Zealand, So much to see and its all very pretty, What breed of deer antler do you have Dan? The bestI've found so far is Chital.... Rusa and Red deer antlers seem to be mostly porous, so for carving I can only use the crown, Chital is nearly solid but for the odd vein hole.

[Dan]

just white tailed dear antlers. dont know how well they carve as i have not used it for anything yet.

[Dennis Hoshield]

Whitetail deer can be a mixed bag. Some are very hard and white, and many are discolored in the core (but sometimes you can use that in your design). It's kind of a crap shoot until you 'carve' into them! If you are only going to carve on one section, then you can just cut the antler above or below your intended carving area to get an idea of what you'll run into. Sometimes, even the peticle/crown can be very 'pithy' ... like pumice.

 

Best of luck! Nice carving, Duncs!

 

Dennis