Catching Up - the news that is fit to type.

  There has been a small interruption in the flow of blogs for no other reason than there were other things to do.  While Thanksgiving is not the huge holiday for Canada that it seems to be in the United States we have still been busy with friends, family and fall fair.

  So the first up date is to show the results from the Rockton World's Fair. I entered four carvings and:

  Two of my entries did well.  The other two where good but not as good as the eventual winners.  There is a serious wood carving club in our area and they keep the standards high.

  

  Also a Gnome update.  You saw the house in the shop on September 13th. Here it is peacefully installed in Nicole's garden.  

  All of these projects do not require many tools or much expenditure.  Give it a try, chip carving is particularly cost effective, really only one knife. 

  cheers ianw 

p.s. get out and see the Fall Colours before they're blown away.

  

Gnome Home

 

  This is one of those silly projects that are inspired by things seen while drifting around the internet.  I saw a post of Gnome Houses as a part of a garden display.  We have a nice garden, which features wonderful flowers,  a large red fish, Captain the lifeboat from Thomas the Tank Engine and Scoop 

of Bob the Builder fame. And some things that were not products of the workshop too.

  Recently I salvaged some wood blown down in a unseasonably strong wind storm.  After filling the back of out car with wood and hauling it to my shop I had to admit I had no plan for the wood. (I just couldn't leave it there to rot).

  

  Anyway a friend with a small chain saw cut some of the pieces for me into basic house shapes and I set out to design and build a home for a tiny fictional character. 

  Believe it or not I had to spend some time imagining what I wanted it to look like when done. 

  

To get depth of colour behind the window I drilled a hole the size of the window and painted the wood behind it in a dark blue/gray colour. The door and doorstep were added separately  after the house's front was painted several coats of the eye catching pinkish red. Every part of the house is soaked in clear deck sealer so that it can live under a tree in a garden for several seasons without being touched up. (no one likes a home that demands too much ongoing maintenance)   In keeping the the natural style the roofing is cedar shingles. 

  The tool that was most useful in the project that I hardly ever use was a coping saw. The door was shaped on my band saw but its window and that upstairs were cut with a coping saw.  I decided against using a jig saw because I didn't want to drill that large a starting hole and....it was just quicker and easier than getting my scroll saw out and set up.  I really like using the scroll saw but only if I have a larger project that makes it worth the set up time. Hand tools are quieter and often quicker for small tasks, hand tool skills shouldn't be ignored, in my humble opinion.

  Beyond getting the rough shape, all the work on a fun/silly project like this can be done completely using hand tools.

 cheers Ian 

p.s. welcome back to school everyone.