Thread: Is wood carving the scummy end of wood working

Got any pics of those pieces from ANZ and the Supreme Courts? Would love to take a look!

Pic of one of the 3 Coats of Arms. All had slight variances in the Kangaroo one was Rambo Roo, one Woosie Woo, the other was just Kanga Roo.

Didn't have much of a camera back then so most of the pics were pretty ordinary taken with very old, 4th hand, ancient, $40 Pentax SLR, that wouldn't focus properly.

If I can find them I'll try scanning them and see what I can come up with.

If anyone goes to Melbourne and wants to see some of my work the ANZ bank complex cnr Queens and Collins St has quite a few The front doors on Colins St Reproduction of the Old Stock Exchange doors and inside set of transom panels over doth sides of the internal doors to the stock Exchange floor, numerous linen fold panels in the bank chamber and aroung the corner in Queens St the doors to the old Safety Deposit building.

The 3 Coats of Arms can be seen in the Court of Appeals one in each of the 3 courts. One of them can also be seen behind the judges in the court scenes of the classic Aussie movie "The Castle".

Coat of arms.jpg

Cheers - Neil

Cheers mate, I’m in Melbourne for work occasionally so I’ll be sure to check them out!

Artwork and carving (bone, stone, metals and woods) is a booming, thriving occupation here in the Pacific Northwest.
Particularly for a whole culture of younger native Indian artists. Many of them are direct descendants of big house names from the 1950's.
Edenshaw, Martin, Davidson, Hunt, Reid and many more.
They've sustained the talent by apprenticing youngsters with an uncle or a grandfather for a decade or more.

Value for price? Been a lot of very shrewd marketing and the quality is really there.
The styles and designs are all around us on a daily basis.
Everything from company logos to coffee cups.

I'm not native that I know of. I have no problem going through a lift of fence posts, looking for the best.
As long as I leave the pile as I found it, I get no snotty, snooty reaction from the lumber yard staff.
If you find that you have to deal with really rude staff, call them out on it. You don't deserve that.

Sorry about my last post pic didn't work properly. I have just installed it again and should be fine now.

The coats of Arms are each (from memory) around 900mm or roughly 3ft high. 'Twas some 20+ years ago and the brain't not as sharp as it used to be.

Cheers - Neil

Gorgeous work mate! Any idea how long a piece like that would take to finish?

Beautiful work!
Claude

Originally Posted by ubeaut

Pic of one of the 3 Coats of Arms. All had slight variances in the Kangaroo one was Rambo Roo, one Woosie Woo, the other was just Kanga Roo.

Didn't have much of a camera back then so most of the pics were pretty ordinary taken with very old, 4th hand, ancient, $40 Pentax SLR, that wouldn't focus properly.

If I can find them I'll try scanning them and see what I can come up with.

If anyone goes to Melbourne and wants to see some of my work the ANZ bank complex cnr Queens and Collins St has quite a few The front doors on Colins St Reproduction of the Old Stock Exchange doors and inside set of transom panels over doth sides of the internal doors to the stock Exchange floor, numerous linen fold panels in the bank chamber and aroung the corner in Queens St the doors to the old Safety Deposit building.

The 3 Coats of Arms can be seen in the Court of Appeals one in each of the 3 courts. One of them can also be seen behind the judges in the court scenes of the classic Aussie movie "The Castle".

Coat of arms.jpg

Cheers - Neil

Any idea how long a piece like that would take to finish?

Long time ago but from memory the 3 coats of arms took around 15-16 weeks from the time they were ordered until they were hung. At that time I owned and ran Central Victorian School of Woodcrafts and was conducting classes 3 days and 4 nights per week as well as weekend workshops most weekends, running courses in woodcarving, woodturning, general woodwork, sharpening, restoration, decorative finishing, upholstery, etc, etc.

The coats of arms were carved between classes and part of one was carved by me as demonstration at the 2nd Timber and Working With Wood Show in 1989.

The Huon pine was sourced from an isolated timber cutter in Tasmania. It tool 3 weeks to find the right piece which was cut specially from a trunk of a massive tree that had been logged over 40 years earlier and never cut up. The slab (again from memory) was 38" wide x 8' long x 6" deep and took another 3 weeks before I found someone who could split the 6" thick timber down to 3" with competence Back then band saw mills were pretty new and not all operators were able to give a clean even cut over the width and length of a slab that size.

For those interested the tree was believed to be well over 1,000 years old. I counted 800 rings in the slab (give or take a few for bad eyesight and the odd lack of concentration).

Cheers - Neil

any thoughts on WA Jarrah and Sheoak for Carving?

The sheoak that I have has to be drilled to put a nail in.It is tough as!

I am sure that it would turn out very nice, but it would be hard on the chisels.

The Sheoak I have used is actually easy enough to work once it's properly seasoned. I didn't have any trouble with it being particularly sensitive to grain direction, runout, or such... It planes and carves better than actual oak in my book... It also hot bent very easily.... Far more reliably than typical "Sub-Tropical" hardwoods.

truckjohn: you may not be referring to the same species of tree at all.
Lots and lots of common names get transferred around the world for different woods altogether.

Australian Red Cedar is a spectacular hardwood, can't recall the proper Latin binomial name for it.
Western Red Cedar in North America is Thuja plicata which is a very soft conifer wood of many shades of brown.

Huon and Camphor Laurel are the two carving woods in Australia that come to mind.
I know there are some others that have the necessary qualities of grain, ring count and density for detail to carve well.
You pick one. Do a dozen carvings or more in a year. Learn the wood. Then use another. Learn the wood.