Monday, September 7, 2009

Many Mini Santas

Christmas time is a-commin', so I'm starting to stock up on Santas. First up is my 2009 ornament. I try to do a different style of ornament every year. I'll do some of the old ones as well, but I introduce a new one annually.





These guys are carved from 1.5"x1.5"x4" basswood. They are carved "on the corner". that is, they are carved so that the nose is formed from a corner of the block. This is a technique to make getting the curvature of the face easier.

This year I'm also doing a limited edition of 5 sets of 5 different Santa miniatures. This Old World Santa will be the first figure in the sets. These are MINIATURES! They are carved from a 1"x1"x3" block of basswood and are NOT carved on the corner.


Minis are a lot of fun to do. Some people do this size of carving all the time. I tease Tom H all the time about how his carvings are so small I have a hard time seeing them, much less carving at that scale. And Don Mertz, The Woodbee Carver, has a whole "line" of carvings he calls Whittle Folk that are all about this size. This, however, is my first major foray into carving this small. I had to go out and buy some +3 reading glasses just to be able to see what I was doing! Gettin' old is hell, let me tell ya.

The knife is a Ralph E. Long Model WH-9 that I've modified to fit my druthers. The blade is about 1" long, and the point originally continued on up which put the tip of the knife about 3/16ths of an inch above the back of the blade where it joins the handle. That put the tip too high for me to use comfortably, so I took a diamond hone to it. I brought the point back down to where it is even with the back of the blade. This is one rockin' miniature knife!

I'm not real pleased with a couple of these guys. A couple of them are probably going to get recarved before long. Eyes at this scale are a real b. . . . . . challenge.

This next bunch was inspired by Don Mertz, again! He calls them Pin Heads because they are carved from the old-fashioned clothes pins that you can get from Hobby Lobby. I saw his, and I just HAD to try it!


I think the pins are made from beech, but I'm not totally sure. The ones I have are almost as easy to carve as basswood, but the wood is darker and has some dark spots in it. These pins are about 9/16" in diameter. Talk about a challenge! Especially the eyes! Never mind carving them, painting them is the real killer. If you click on the picture you'll see that the eyes on the two red-and-whites on the right are pretty wonky. I either need to make the eyes bigger or get a smaller toothpick (that being what I use to paint the eyes).

If you are interested in talking to Ralph about his knives, his email addy is

And now for something completely different:

This woodspirit is carved from a birch dowel 1.5" in diameter by 6" long. I'm working on a step-by-step that will appear on this blog real soon now.

Until then, let the chips fly!

4 comments:

  1. great bunches of santa,, great job, arleen

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  2. Great looking bunch of Santa's Robert! Keep up the good work! Love the 1 inch standing up guys.

    Corey

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  3. Good stuff Bob, I like the first couple best, really good detail and knife technique. Must be a real challenge doing the cloth pegs. How did you get them to all stand up straight?
    It is a guess but it looks like the pegs could be birch. In Europe we have a lot of small pegs, hooks, knobs etc turn from birch. A much underrated wood.

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  4. Thanks, Arleen and Corey.

    Sean, I got them to stand up by leaning them against the backdrop. The pegs could be birch. I have a birch dowel that looks similar, but the pegs carve much more easily. Maybe it's the fact that the cuts I'm making on the pegs are much shallower.

    Bob

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