Thread: "Muscha's" Hairstick

First time I've seen or heard of this hairstick. Beautifully made again.

You would also be rather lucky to be able to charge by the hour in this sort of field and get the price you want. Unless your clients are oil barons.

Good luck, and again - designer magazines beckon.

Like I said, it's a bit started ...
nothing serious: a drawing pasted on the piece of boxwood, a first cutting with bandsaw, a few holes and ageneral form setting.
I took care to leave a pad underneath (as you can see I almost forget) to hold it correctly on the bench.
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Buiding out the birth of the spikes...
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and starting to make it thinner
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What is the scale of these copaeu? They look almost weapon sized.

yeah! Self defense weapon !

It's about 17cm x 8.5cm and fit very well in the fist !

That is beautiful and beautifully made!!

WIP is looking good.

What timber do you use?

I'm loving this, keep up the good work..
What tools do you use to create these?

As i told before it's made of Boxwood.
I use all tools I can find ! carving chisels for sure, but as you can see on the pictures, i also use a scalpel and a piece of old blade of bandsaw I drilled & grinded as a scraper.

here is the plate n°51 of "documents décoratifs" by muscha, from which i (widely) took inspiration.
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This is great! I've been wanting to get a handle on some of this sort of work... especially after looking at some spoons on this forum, but the detail and how to actually achieve it stumps me. Nobody ever shows HOW they achieve their results with this fine work.

I recently acquired a scroll saw and have been mucking around with 2-piece hair and shawl pins, using words, birds, flowers and abstract shapes as patterns. They have been 'ok' but nowhere near this standard. I really hope you will finish this WIP with particular focus on how you use the tools you do. I'm particularly interested in the small shaped scraper. Exactly how did you make that and how do you keep it sharp?

I usually use pieces of bandsaw (broken one...) or old wood saw to make scrapers. Just give it the shape you need. I know a man who made an entire moulding in a staircase with a handmade scraper !

To sharpen it could be more difficult.
First clean the edges and give a 90° angle with possibly files an sharpening stones
racloir1lo3.gifracloir2ca2.gif
You can try to use it at this point. Even if it's not sharpenned yet, It can make sort of a job.

Several ways to sharpen. I would need more pictures to explain and it would make a thread by itself !
I can give you french links, but i'm sure you can find english ones.
You'll need a..."brunissoir" I think it's called burnisher in english, to push over the steel.

Anyway look at this links, could be useful :

A pdf on scraper sharpening : http://www.hmdiffusion.com/rftp/sat/pdf/n291.pdf
fig 1 and 2, second page is to prepare the scraper.

A bunch of videos (in french also, sorry), the pdf is 2nd method, same result as 1st :
1st : affûtage et affilage racloir 04 affilage 1er methode - Vidéo Dailymotion
2nd : affûtage et affilage racloir 05 affilage 2eme méthode - Vidéo Dailymotion
3rd : affûtage et affilage racloir 06 menuisier lime plus pierre - Vidéo Dailymotion
second part : affûtage et affilage racloir 07 menuisier affilage - Vidéo Dailymotion

In the last method, you sharpen the scraper like a chisel and push the edge behind with the burnisher.Instead of the two others methods, only one side is sharpened.

Hope it will helps you !
Please forgive mistakes if there are some !

copeau: Thank you very much. Merci.
Very good explanation for making scrapers. I am learning.
Yes. "burnisher" is the english word.
To make the edge roll over for a burr.
I am carving my very first spoons and I do NOT want to use sandpaper.
Because there will be more carving after that is finished.

Hello Copeau

Well, I had a little progress today. It doesn't comes quickly, eh?
I'm starting a work that my brother in law would call... the moderators would not like it.
I let you imagine and it may not sound good in english. He is not patient, what do you want? Carpentry training, no offense meant !

In short, I tried to redraw the lines, to set down the different layers, to clean a little the openings on the front side and to start the first details. I'm working from the center to the outside.
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I sometimes use some small flat gouges as a scraper to clean the background.
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Good evening,

A few more progress, didn't had the time to work yesterday...

Not obvious, but head is thinner, legs are rounder, holes bigger, and the arms are coming to their final shape litle by little.
I'll try to give the head his final thickness.It will be more easy to clean the holes.
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That's Beautiful work! Box Wood would be prohibitively expensive for us in Australia, if we could even find it. Queen Ebony might be a possibility though.