Woodworking Project, pint size truck

  

nothing to do with the blog,
 I just needed this to remind me of our recent holiday before I go out to shovel the drive way for the third time today.

  I have been working in my shop on a variety of projects for the house and store but for amusement I have been carving. I am new to carving but find in very relaxing and distracting.  Recently I read a book about carving netsuke, these are an old and highly refined Japanese art form that reflects historic aspects of Japanese culture.  Someday it would be nice to be good enough that I could carve a netsuke, but I think mine will reflect modern Canadian culture, perhaps I will carve a hockey puck as one of my first netsuke. (even I should be able to do that).
  
    Anyway small carvings have some real advantages, if you mess up big time, you haven't ruined dozens or maybe hundreds of hours, just a couple of evenings, and you use almost no materials so costs are almost zero.

   I've carved a few Christmas ornaments but my latest carving follows in the tradition of reflecting out culture.

    I am carving a pick up truck, as you can see it is pretty small even in comparison to a Matchbox truck.  This truck will be painted red and become a pocket toy for Kieran.  For the next truck I will try and make it less a generic truck and more a specific model, a Ford or Chevy or something.

   When I am making anything small I carve and whittle using very sharp knives and chisels but in the end I often need to touch things up with needle files or a wee piece of sand paper.  Something I learned when reading about the netsuke, it takes much finer grade sand paper to do a good job on a small carving.  Commonly I use 320 on woodworking projects but need to go to 500 or finer when sanding a carving before it is finished.

   About three years ago I bought this low price set of files at thetoolstore.ca and have used them by the hour.  I find them especially good in soft woods, the sort I carve nearly all the time.  Big money can be spent on high quality needles, but unless you are a gun smith, maybe the quality is over kill.

    Thanks to Sham for fixing up my byline, it is cleaner and more professional looking.