Four coats of polyurethane, and he is now finished!

10/2/09–First coat of polyurethane!.

9/20/09–Hat texturing almost finished.

9/6/09–Hat texturing started.

9/2/09-New photo. This wood has been very difficult to work with. I never know how it will carve until I dig in and start carving. Some carve very nicely, others don’t. This one falls into the latter category, but I like the shape of it, so I’ll keep on truckin’ with it.

8/22/09–Here I have gotten more of the carving roughed in. The pipe is now discernible. Once everything is placed the way I want it, I’ll start adding more detail.

8/18/09–I am home and back to work after a great trip to Michigan to meet with members of our online Woodcarver Chat. It’s taken a few days to get back into something resembling a routine.

I made a few changes and did more work on the lobster buoy. Here’s an updated picture.

>Here I have moved the nose over a little, trying to get a little deeper in hopes of getting below that crack. It’s hard to avoid cracks in wood this old. I have no doubt that it is stable, but I don’t want them to be too distracting. Those checks, or cracks, can actually ad a lot of character to the carving

More rugh carving

The first step is to remove the paint and hope that the wood under it is fairly stable. This wood is extremely dry and brittle. I’ve been applying lots of Danish Oil and allowing it to be absorbed deep into the wood. This does seem to help some, but it’s slow going.

Rough blocking

>This fisherman is going to have a knitted watch cap. I’ll also add a fiddle to the carving. I haven’t yet decided where the fiddle will be, but I’ll work that out as the carving progresses. I hope you will enjoy watching the carving happen! :)>

This is the side of the lobster buoy that I will be carving.