dervishcarving

lovely sink. excelent piece. What was it like fitting the sink-drain plumbing?

did you make the mould?

i like this slater (as they call woodlouse up here)... its a nice twist on the more usual design. I carve them with the legs underneath but dont add the metalwork. But the metal legs definitely add to teh design. Might give it a go soemtime

TTP you beat me too it Simon, i found resin (2 part modeling resin, acrylic stuff) on Ebay pretty cheep plus the glow-in-the-dark powder. Was fun to play with but getting a good seel to stop it flowing out (I filled the bottom of a bowl i cut-out with it) was tricky. Happy to chat about it if you want. Only issue i have withe the glowing-powder is that the resin becomes a bit yellow. Next time i will combine the glow-powder plus something else so it looks better in daylight. Maybe some turquoise mixed in or maybe some ground copper powder.

the small echo is supposed to be great for detail work. If in doubt, ask RobD, he knows bars better than about anyone i know.

Thanks J, I will suggest that to the boss-man. This is what i like about this forum, you always get goo advice

I was following this thread for a while but it seems to have died. We have been milling quite a bit of reasonably-fresh Larch recently and the blades dont half get gummed up. Do any of you have any tricks that might help reduce this? Its currently just water dripping about 2 or 3 a minute. I know its better to avoid milling green softwood if possible but this time it had to be done

if you just want to do that get yourself some flap-sander disks from ebay (like this Angle Grinder Flap Disc Sanding Abrasive Wheel 115mm 120 Grit Aluminium Oxide | eBay) 40 grit will do you fine. Saves spending loads on a grinding burr. The saburr tools are very agresive

Those look like Saburr Tools stuff, grinding burrs. If so, yes. i use them a lot for chainsaw-carving (mainly for detailing work) and they are superb not cheep but fantastic. i use the doughnut shaped one for smoothing mainly, benches and the like. The others i use for cleaning up details after i have used the saw

well deserved, detail and composition all perfect mate

like how you managed to carve them sideways, a nice twist came out good

Well that opens up the debate on 'which saw for detailing' again ill chuck in my 2p worth to get it going stihl ms181 is a great saw for detail work. balance is great with a 12inch dime and i find they have great power for the weight. Plus they cheep, so if you kill them, no huge loss. I block out with a husky 550xp, an absolute powerhouse

spalted the right amount is great. But beach (and birch is even worse!) can go from spalted, to rotted very quickly. Definitely airflow problem but sometimes you just have to do the best you can. I would putt the worst out, scrape it clean and try treating it. and whilst you are at it, see if it is going soft. Would be horrible to look at it next year and find its all rotten

For ages i wa suggesting deckign oil and it IS a good product BUT it has a few limitations. You really need to dilute it 50:50 with white spirit for the first few coats or it wont soak in far enough. You need to build up layers of thinned-down deckign oil and then apply some undiluted layers but how dry the wood is has a huge effect on the finish. Any moisture in the wood and it can result in a cloudy 'icky' finish that i really dont like on any smooth surfaces an alternative is to apply a few coats of teak oil or danish oil and then a few coats of diluted decking oil. The teak oil tends to displace any surface 'dampness' and i find i get better results however, Im a scientist and like many others, i am always looking to see what might be even better than what i am already using.. so this is my next 'try', based o9n discussions with a few others. a few coats of danish oil (just to get the moisture levels down and to soak in nicely) and then a few coats of this stuff, diluted 50:50 with danish oil Wood Protective Treatment & Preserver 5L Clear - after that you can give maybe a coat or two with undiluted stuff and it should now be pretty stable sorry for the wall-of-text, but you did ask oh.. i know this might sound strange considering i am now effectively an environmental scientist etc etc... but dont bother using any preservative that is water based. High VOC is what you want water based stuff with wax etc is just rubbish. Goes on easy but washes away too quickly

love it, out of my league

others might disagree. might also be worth milling them. short but wide boards. might have to be quartersawn, im no milling expert

Hi Im based in aberdeen and i carve quite a lot of elm. I like carving elm even though itc an be like concrete but it has 2 main problems. 1- it can be rotten at the base. 2- wind-shakes or whatever them things are called are a complete nightmare I currently have 2 lovely-looking sticks (1.5- 2 foot diameter, 8 or 10 foot long), look lovely with just a hint of a crack around the center .... but they are worthless. The crack goes the full length and starts to open up a while after carving. I have 2 carvings now that looked fine at the time, but a week or 3 after and the cracks open up and they are rubbish. conclusion... if you want to carve them and use them for practice.. go ahead. great wood for carving and a lovely finishing-wood. but if you considering them for sale (either carved or selling to carver) i would be very hesitant just my 2p worth

wish i could claim i came up with the design but it was my mate who did. He is a timber framer who taught me a lot about framing. Was his idea, i just helped make it reality

oops... would help if i added the pics

Evening folks. Las weekend a good mate of mine dragged me off all the way up into the Caringorm mountains so we could build this bench at his climbing-club's clubhouse. They had 3 Scotts pines that had rot and had to be felled so we had plenty of BIG logs, an Alaskan-mill, a few saws, my carving-kit and hi timber-framing kit. All 'shifting' had to be done by hand (plus the winch) so it was slow-going. About 26 hours (and 2 people) later, after snow and sunshine, we had this. 'Ice axes and boots' theme, all framed.

when i help with timber framing work (done a couple now) we make the pegs using a shave horse and a draw knife. Takes time but you dont cut as many fibers as other methods

Nice Si

Great piece mate. See you in the summer

First name Ky, second name Anize? thanks for the info, i do like to know where words come from

The man who owns the woods where i carve does a fair bit of timber framing (not HUGE amounts, but he does soem). He and I used to make all joints with a drill + chisels and it too ages, these mortices would fairly deep of course for buildings.. He looked into a whole load of alternatives but in the end he bought a chain morticer. Not a cheep thing to buy I'm told, but saves a hell of a lot of time