dervishcarving

Cheers Rob. Im still holding my Sugi back for now as i cant carve until my hand heals a bit more, there ae still 2 wires sticking out of the end of my finger! The tip is lovely and fine though (the bar, not my finger) and im not convinced the samuri is sufficiently smaller to persuade me to get one. I would recommend the Sugi Hara bars to anyone though, fantastic build quality. I love my toonie bar, turned my Husky 440e from a saw i never used into my favorite blocking saw and als good for some detail work. Many thanks to you Rob for helping me get it right

I was thinking teh same thing haven seen the video but i wondered if it would fall apart... seems not nice job I like the ferules you have on the keyring, where did you find them? Im also trying to find where i can get the metal settings that i have seen used to make wooden rings. they are like 2 sides of a ring, screw together with a 'ring' of wood between them. anyone got any ideas?

like that one

My dad (down in N wales) had the 'lecky people round last year. He had a huge old oak at the bottom of the drive that overhangs the road, the drive and the electricity cables (to the house and along the road). this is a big tree. Its also got a fair few problems (bit of rot, pretty unbalanced, drops limbs regularly) so they decided it was dangerous. they got an independent arborist in and he agreed, dangerous. My dad reluctantly agreed that it had to come down (and i do mean reluctant, its a great old tree) but the council decided to slap a protection order on it where there wasnt one previously. Plus the village busy-body old woman said that she would do anything she could to block removing it if they went ahead. So now we just wait for the next big storm and it will probably fall over. Kinda sad but these trees are way older than us or our power lines. the lines are strung beneath the branches, the road would have been built way after the tree started growing and this old woman's grandchildren seem to like walking underneath it. something, sometime, is gonna go wrong.

No sign of them waking up in NE Scotland yet. We use a lot of ash for bodging and have a lot to choose from but at the moment they are all still pretty bare. i don wonder if the disease is going to spread along train tracks though. The air movement from the trains will draw teh spores along the tracks easily.

we do a local fair or two with the bodging group. What will sell seems a bit of a lottery. The main one we do is not a big thing, a small town fair, so price is key. This year we will not be trying to sell expensive items, just a lot of cheaper ones. Spurtles. dibbers, rolling pins, keyrings... all priced low to sell easy. Ill take along some smaller bowls and sell t hem fairly cheep (its for the club's insurance not for my pocket so i dont mind) and soem short stools we make during the winter. Last year bigger stools, priced at about £30 didnt sell very well. this year smaller oens at half price is the aim. Oh, all our stuff is turned on a pole lathe and we take along a few pole lathes and let people have a go. this kinda encourages the idea that 'this isnt mass-produced in a factory, this is all hand made'. helps a bit with the sales pitch

seasoned is always better than un-seasoned but sometimes beggars cant be choosers

pain the ends of the logs and it will seasons with less splits sometimes gloss point will do the job. as for seasoning... well, if you can let it seasons a year then great, if not then you carve it as it is Im doing a few stump-carvings these days, those are often not very well seasoned at all.

great, thanks for the info

nice bit of bending there. My bodging groups have just made some large steamers (long UPVC water pipe with end-caps of wood, not tight fitting) and we hope to start chair construction again soon. never tried it myself, looking forward to learning a new thing im assuming bending veneer thickness is a lot easier/safer than bending full-thickness wood? complete novice here so my questions might be dumb

Nice idea Dan. just a thought but how does the grain run? just wondering it it will have enough strength for pulling given it has been drilled etc?

mainly we care what we have I love carving Elm and being based in NE scotland i still get a lot of it. Its bloody hard though! Some of my recent pieces have taken a lot longer than they should have simply due to how hard the elm was Ash i like to carve but i prefer to use it for turning oak is a dream to carve but kinda hard to get hold of big pieces Sycamore is ok, has a lovely creamy finish due to its soft grain. i find it dosnt hold edges so well though Beach is lovely but also horrible I find that when its slightly green the dust is so fine it clogs the chain/groove a lot and so you spend a lot of time clearing the bar. If you run the saw for a few seconds after each cut (when not touching teh wood) it helps a bit As for softwood, my faveorite is douglas fir which i can get quite easily (i work for a friend a few days a month in his forrest, lot of wind-blown douglas and i get the buts). after that, they are all of a muchness to be honest. it comes down to the individual pieces and how knotty they are sorry for the poor typing, im still 1-handed after my operation also very very bored and frustrated. a week+ without bveing able to carve is tedious, looking at another 2-3 weeks of that is very frustrating good luck

an internet search brings up no legal protection for the bees yet in the UK. There may be a push to introduce protection but nothing so far. This dosnt mean that we shouldnt do all we can to help them. Moving nests in the right way and at the right time is a good step. this chap has a decent page with some advice Bee Nest Removal and Bumblebee Nests

pff, neighbors are usually a pain. you tried yer best mate, cant do more than that

yep, its a shame but the bes that were out of the nest are probably dead by now move them at night and its safer. at least you tried mate

Well thats the news from the man who knows. Rob, did you see the post that Tom (splinters) put up on this forums a couple weeks back? referring to a new stihl bar?

mixed reports. some like em, some hate em. several people have had them split within an hour or so of very light work. im gonna pass i think. the sugi bar is a bit narower than the standard stihl dime bar and works for me

thats a nice idea tom

Love the look of this saw but, with the exception of the bar, isnt the main weight either the engine block (and thats not going to be carbon) or the fuel/oil? so we are really talking about saving weight on side panels etc? im not convinced its worth it. lightweight bars are good though, i started moving over to the Sugi Hama bars

paint the ends of your slab ro try to stop it splitting from the ends. wax will do if you haev nothign else (melt some candles) as for carvings, i use decking oils. i think them down with white spirit (10% or so) and then use a plant sprayer to apply it. work well on BIG carvings

I got some Av gloves from ROb chainsawbars when i got a new sugi toonie bar. not sure i felt much difference but i didnt use them for long, i like having chain clogging fibers on the back of my gloves. i know they prolly do nothing but it makes me feel better

great use of an old lump of cedar

nice one gobby. how did you get the details of teh studs on the door? or are they metal? like it anyway

oops, as pointed out to me, that should be 15-25 MM not cm i blame old age