EddieJ

I'm another who loves all forms of sculpture, and have always felt that wood and metal compliment each other brilliantly. I reckon that wire sculpture could be very effective at night time if it had small lights inside. On the same theme, I spotted these last year.

I thought that it was just me that hated sanding. The biggest problem is that all of my wood is green oak. Sanding anything green is a pain in the backside. I try and do it in stages and leave a few days between finishes to try and give a little case hardening, but then I get paranoid about splits appearing. I also need to learn not to make a radius that makes life difficult to sand. Ref the time and care.. The last two sculptures have shown me that I badly need to get my eyes tested before I have an accident. I'm finding that I constantly need to keep re focusing my vision when using the band saw. Not a safe thing to have to do.

A hat stand indeed! It would want to be a very wide hallway, as it's approx 800mm wide. Rob, this one has taken the best part of two days. Cutting the Wood out doesn't take long, it's the sanding that zaps the hours. I'm getting to the stage where I could really do with a large bobbin sander. Sadly finances say different though.

This one stands approx 6' high. Since taking these photos a moment ago, I've decided to take it apart and cut a small V shape into the base of each section to lessen the chunky appearance of the base.

Just to add as I left it to long to be to edit. I also have a tree in our garden that I would love to carve, but can't bring myself to do it, as it is a perfectly sound tree. I can see so many differing things in the shape of it.

To back up your argument... I wonder how many of us have been annoyed at the sight of people having carved their names etc into perfectly healthy trees. I know that I have been. Sometimes carving perfectly good felled trees also annoys me. The guy where I rent my workshop has recently helped to source four of the biggest oak butts that you are ever likely to see. These are going to carved into a sculpture as a money no object project. I get wound up by this, as those trees should have been put into construction use. I just think what a waste of perfectly sound timber.

I'm not sure what the hourly rate would be as I have only taken two pieces in to be blasted and there was a good six months between them. I think that it very much depends on how busy that they are, whether they have to change the blast medium especially, and also if you just turn up at the weekend in the hope of getting them to do a bonus job. I think that the cost is quite reasonable, and there is no way that you could ever achieve the same result by hand etc. Having your own equipment to do it would make it more convenient though, but sadly I can't imagine setting up a sand blasting unit etc would be a cheap thing to do. The guy that runs the business does have a very good eye of what needs to done and how far to take things. I'm going to take in a sample of stained oak and see how he gets on with that.

Taken to the extreme, my first attempt carving was on a living tree. Okay the tree was being taken down, but it is now quite successfully forming a canopy around which I hope will eventually shade the seat. I can't say that I would blatantly set out to cut into a tree just for he sake of it though.

Hi Si, Sadly it is one of those jobs that I have to take to someone to be done. The average cost is £30.00 which I don't mind paying, but it it would be lovely to have the kit to do it myself. Talking to the guy that does it yesterday, he was saying that there is a lot that can be done with a sand blaster on wood. Depending upon the medium used and air pressure, you can round off hard edges, shape wood and raise the grain as much or little as you like. A friend of mine who used to dabble with stained sculpture would have the gran raised, stain the wood, then either sand the wood back down again or have it blasted again to just remove the surface stain and leave the deeper parts. I quite like the idea of trying that. Blasting certainly opens up scope for using wood that would otherwise just be left to rot away.

Sorry for the delay in replying. I'd love my own blasting kit, but sadly I have to use someone else to do it. The average cost is about £30.00 but you do have to make sure that the wood is absolutely bone dry. I had another piece blasted today.http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/chainsaw-carving-forum/41873-natural-danger-wip.html#post687897

I finally got of my backside and had the 'creature' sandblasted today. I can now see where and what I have to do make a start.

Many thanks for the advice Si. Both exhibitions are indoors. One is in two weeks time, at a weekend art show that a local garden centre is hosting. The idea is that I shall both display and work on a piece. The second is not until November and is a two week exhibition at an art gallery with ten other artists. I shall also be the only sculptor at that one. I guess that more of a worry is making sure that I can get enough pieces made for the second exhibition if all my pieces sell at the first. Being new to all this, I had best contact the organisers of both shows to find out what is what. For both shows, it is the organisers that have contacted me, which gives a nice boost to my confidence and belief in my work.

In the last week I have been asked if I would like to take part in two separate art events displaying my sculpture work. I have said yes to both events, but am now left with a problem... I would like place small business card display stands in front of each sculpture, giving brief details of each piece, but I can't anything suitable. In my head I would like them to be approx 300mm high, and constructed from either chrome or stainless. Does anyone have an idea of where I could buy suitable stands for the job. Here is a much larger but similar stand which I found from a Google search.

I have to admit to liking the design, but I would wouldn't I. Trying to do the design 'twizzle' with a chainsaw is on my list of must make projects. Are you leaving the top as is, or square ending it?

I guess that it would very much depends on the the species of wood, but here is an example of a piece of oak that I recently had blasted. I left it to dry out thoroughly for approx 4 months before having it blasted. Tomorrow the prop of wood underneath gets replaced with a very nice mirror polished stainless steel tube and plate. Before. After

If only I had the ability and skill required for this, I'd jump at the chance. Thanks for posting it up on here... I haven't had a holiday or day out in years, and will try to make this show a date.

As above. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near someone using a compound bow with wooden arrows. It is an accident waiting to happen. I don't think that using a lathe to make the arrows is going to be that easy either. If you get stuck, I have a dowel maker and can produce any size from square stock from 1/4" up to 1"

Thanks very much for the offer, but sadly is does need to be 14m. The stupid thing is that I used to have an ex fire brigade one, but gave it away for the very reason that you and apbell have mentioned. It was too damn heavy! My problem is that it is for working on this place which belongs to the mum-in- law. It's 14m to where the fourth scaffold lift is. The scaffold has long gone, but there is an ever increasing amount of problems to sort out.

Could anyone recommend a reasonably priced but safe and sturdy 14m plus ladder, that isn't going to rock about more than my legs! I could hire one, but would prefer to buy my own. For my own peace of mind, I also wouldn't mind a recommendation for a cable arrest system. The arrest cable would only be required to be approx 6,000mm in length. BTW this isn't for tree work, but I couldn't think where else to post it.

How did I miss this! That's brilliant Kim, and this is no way meant as a criticism of any of your other work, but to me I reckon that your biggest 'natural' talent and skill is to be found carving items such as this. Superb.

There is certainly some very incredibly talented people on this forum. I wouldn't even begin to know where to start with something like that. You can almost reach out and touch the muscle and strength in those legs. Brilliant.

I'm not sure where my fear of using colour comes from. A (possibly) simple idea has just come to me, and I'll have to give it a go and post up the result. I quite like the idea of flames, and I'm pretty sure that I have red, yellow and orange. Sadly though, it may take a few weeks before I can find the time, but I'll give it a go.

It was about 8hrs work, but and would have been quicker but I'm getting increasingly fussy about the sanding down. Sadly being green oak, it is a pain in the backside if you try and do it the same day. I should learn to be more patient and let it case harden a bit and keep going back to it. I cheated by making a quick pattern, then cut the shapes out using my band saw. They aren't quite as accurate as I would have liked, as I was having trouble with my blades. The 1 1/4" two skip that I normally use was just about fine for the cutting out, but it was too course, so I switched a 1/2" 4 skip but I kept over cutting. Strange how changing from the usual choice of blade can make so much difference. To start with I wasn't too sure if I like the finished item, but it has really grown on me, and I now intend to make two more, one twice the height and one half the height, then display them in a group of three. I reckon that it could look quite effective.

Everyone of your projects make me smile. I particularly like the use of colours. Someone recently gave me a vast selection of Morrells stains/colours and I haven't as yet been brave enough to try them. The more that I see your work, the more that I think that I should give it a go.