Two Kinds of Carving

  Aside from working on the long, long chair rail I have been spending some time finishing a relief carving that I began a while ago.  The carving part is finished, it is the sanding and finishing part that I am doing now.  It seems that final sanding is going to take nearly as long as the initial carving.

  Basswood is the preferred carving wood in this part of the country although butternut is also poplar although getting very rare.
  

  Chip carving is an old folk art style of carving, to put ornaments on to common objects.  The piece I just finished will become the carved top of an art box of some type.  I don't have a plan yet.

  The great thing about chip carving is it takes one tool, a chip carving knife.  I drew my own design last evening and then cut out the chips.  Spray varnish was created for chip carvers.  

a Moor small Chip Carving Knife.

  I am spending time  carving again because I foresee a time without large shop machines.  Carving will keep me playing with wood, and improving my skills without big machines with there mess and noise.  

  Give it a try.

cheers, ianw 

Project #2 - a drill bit holder

  What you see is the remains of a laminated hardwood head board that I picked from a curb  on my way home a few months ago.  As you know I am always on the look out for wood that is worth re-using.  If you look it is amazing what is laying around, much of it nicer that pallet wood.

  Friends of mine had some work done in their basement to help in organising their storage space.  They build a basic solid workbench from 2 x 4's and asked me to check my off cut bin for some pieces of wood to make a drill bit holder/organiser.  I wanted to use hardwood so that the holes drilled to hold the bits wouldn't break down too quickly. 

  The resulting is a three tiered holder, before drilling is 16 x 6 x 3/4, 16 x 4 x 3/4, 16 x 2 x 3/4 inches. The head board was probably  birch, so hard.  The stain that covered the head board was of the stained varnish variety that sanded off without much effort.  

  In keeping with Chris Schwarzs' 'make pretty' thinking I used a round over bit on the leading edges, then filed and sanded the end grain and edges.  This bit holder had no sharp edges and no saw marks showing either.  It is nicer than the one I made myself a few years ago to hold router bits. That's just embarrassing, time for me to organise the drawer and its router bits.

  Just an FYI.  A really nice bench top router table, that will do lots of 'make pretty' .

Kreg PRS2100 Precision Bench Top Router Table 

 Cheers, Ianw