A short while ago I bought myself a power carver from Axminster. A motorized unit that is suspended from the ceiling, with a long, flexible drive shaft and a reciprocating carving head at the end. And then I started practising. One of the first pieces I made left my hands so fast I couldn’t even take a picture. It now serves as a “bits-n-pieces” dish on my wife’s desk at work, and one of her colleagues remarked that she would have bought this if it was for sale (that’s nice to hear!).
So I got a little more adventurous. Here are the latest projects. This one is almost finished (can you spot the missing piece?)
14″ dish from monkey puzzle (araucaria)
And this one clearly needs a little more work.
Hollow form from beech, with a grass pattern, still to be coloured
Backside of the same piece, with empty space for a dragonfly or a butterfly?
Good fun, but it does require some practice. And it also requires very, very, very sharp chisels. In fact, they need to be scary sharp. More about this journey to come…