Thread: tagua nut carving

Originally Posted by tea lady

Ken just hot glued the nut to the waste block on the lathe. Didn't go anywhere.

Dunno what happened, mine didn't even take any pressure, turned on side and clunk on floor.

TL - Where I found them the locals called them Elephant Apples, they have a fibrous outer skin & are about the size of a large orange. The elephants crunch them up !
Tagua Nuts are from palms of the genus Phytelephas, not sure what genera my nuts (!) are from, probably Hyphaene, so they are related, both being Arecaceae family.
Mark

Originally Posted by Old-Biker-UK

TL - Where I found them the locals called them Elephant Apples, they have a fibrous outer skin & are about the size of a large orange. The elephants crunch them up !
Tagua Nuts are from palms of the genus Phytelephas, not sure what genera my nuts (!) are from, probably Hyphaene, so they are related, both being Arecaceae family.
Mark

Interesting! So did people in Africa use them for anything?

Originally Posted by Iggy

(I think people forget about the tactile aspect of sculpture). .

Too right Iggy,
much of the highly detailed netsuke like pieces that I've seen are there to look at (not touch)
the "robustness" of the design works perfectly IMO, strong, tactile and resolved

Frank, I know what you're getting at when looking at the size of a piece and the artists handling of detail at various scales, I probably used to agree with you but I'm continually getting surprised by exceptions to the rules.

Less is more.....Mies van der Rohe
Less is a bore....Robert Venturi

TL -
Not so far as I know, they don't look like they would be very tasty!

Originally Posted by Frank&Earnest

...or perfect for turning bowls...

Not a bad idea ....

Sanded the base flat, CA to a scrap block held in a 4-jaw, bit fiddly to centre as there's not a lot of material to work with but once centred cut OK. Inside cut by hand scraper, rim & outside on the rose engine with a 1/8" carbide fly cutter.
Mark

Maybe you guys should have a look at this site.
The Carving Path (Powered by Invision Power Board)
Lots of good information on carving netsukes and all hard things. good information on tools to make for this type of carving.
Hope this helps.

Terry

Originally Posted by Iggy

Watch them grow perhaps?
Did some more on it this evening, finding it hard to hang onto, tried hotglue on a stick and it just kept falling off

I got advised that a couple of drops of super glue would do the job. you simply break it off when you are done. I dont know what the oil content is but I suspect that it is reasonably high. Lookin good!

Originally Posted by underfoot

Less is more.....Mies van der Rohe
Less is a bore....Robert Venturi

Aha, this explains it all. I'm of Italian background, not Dutch.

From a similar nut I picked up somewhere.


No big void but the material was very brittle, turned outside with a small home-made Bedan & ground a small scraper from an old file for the inside.

Mark

Both very nice, Mark, and very good examples for what I was trying to say: IMHO the execution of the first one compliments the medium more than the execution of the second one. What do you think?

BTW, Underfoot, I had a bit more time to think about your comment. Of course there are people who prefer minimalist simplicity and others who prefer more complex decoration. My hypothesis was another, though. It was that there is a relationship between scale, material and style, and possibly the scale and texture of a tagua nut is more suitable to delicate detail than to other "character" features like the rough patch in Ken's and Mark's second turning.

No reference to the quantity of decoration: I think that a flamboyant decorative stile like Rococo would also be less appropriate. And Mark's translucent little bowl would have been equally good even if it had less ruffles.

The more I read this the more I have a suspicion that I am just trying to talk myself out of carving the @#$%^ nuts and turning them instead... no guts no glory!

Mark well done like the OT on the first one that finish on the second looks impressive

Originally Posted by Frank&Earnest

My hypothesis was another, though. It was that there is a relationship between scale, material and style, and possibly the scale and texture of a tagua nut is more suitable to delicate detail than to other "character" features like the rough patch in Ken's and Mark's second turning.

I dont think scale has any bearing on style and decoration, look at some existing Netsuke, there is an enormous range and they are handled in some very different ways. The diff between theirs and mine is experience and skill

I am not saying that your work is in any way inferior to any other Iggy. Indeed, I would be proud to be able to produce something like your crab. That, however, does not mean that in the enormous range of netsukes your preferences and mines should necessarily coincide.

I still think that size does matter, though. IIRC Underfoot made reference to an artist who made enormous plastic statues whose artistic statement was basically only their size. In a small size they would have been just like the plastic toys given away by Macca with the kids' meals. Without denying the fact that some of those toys could be works of art in themselves.

Here is a little frog that I just stumbled across.
Another Tagua frog MatthewGrimes's Blog

Terry