Project 9: Fish Fan Pull

I was feeling anxious. So I put down my worries and picked up a block. And then … a fish!

So far so good. But here’s what happened next. The wood had a knot, almost in the area where an eye should have been, but not quite. It would have been a really weird place for an eye. So I drilled out the knot, pounded in a peg, and cut it flush. This wasn’t the best idea. Now, instead of a small circle of discolored wood, there was a big circle of discolored wood. At that point, the only thing to do was keep going and drilling all sorts of holes all over the place, sticking pegs left and right.

Before long, the fish was a spotted fish. Point being, the solution to the problem made things worse, then it made things even better than if there had been no problem to begin with. This could be a philosophy I guess, but I don’t want to make too much of a piece of wood on a piece of bread.




I was pretty happy with the tail. Like the ones in One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.





After polyurethane and some plastic eyes, we were in business.








Originally published November 2011

Project 8: Bird Pre-Engagement Ring

Modern lovers, you understand. Foisting a ring on another person feels wrong. All this talk about mutual respect and equality, and then you have to buy your beloved like a goat in Marrakesh?

On the other hand, what is so bad about a little romance? Thus the pre-engagement ring, until all interested parties can pick out a real ring and do everything else together.

Basswood, Spackle, Polyurethane, Fire Island driftwood, Amagansett seashells, Dead Horse Bay sea glass. Also Swarovski crystals from Beads World near Times Square, which is an amazing place if you haven’t been before. Or if you have.

The first challenge was getting a believable bird shape.




Attempt #1 looked more like a chicken, which wasn’t the effect I was going for.





Attempt #2 seemed slightly more graceful.





Then came two miserable weeks grinding glass for the talons, polishing, grinding again, polishing again, breathing glass dust, starting over when pieces disappeared in the backyard, choking on glass dust, grinding fingers when the pieces got too small to hold safely, being partially blinded by glass dust. These were troubled times.





Seashells, on the other hand, are really easy to shape. Plus, they generate lots of calcium powder for your tomato plants.





These are supposed to be legs. Either a shape registers in the mind correctly, or it doesn’t. It’s really cool when you make just a few rough cuts, and then all of a sudden, hey, this looks like a gorilla face! (Maybe this is also why “realistic” animal carvings are so boring … all the detail is superfluous). But if the mind has to stretch to see the intended representation, then something is wrong. Deliberate abstraction doesn’t change anything, and only makes the onus of clarity more important. Point being, I was never fully comfortable with these legs, but didn’t want to carve thinner ones or try for more detail, for fear of breaking them off altogether. Then again, bird legs are never in a natural ring shape, so this may not have worked even if they were as thin as matchsticks and scaly as a post office.






After I put the eyes on it looked more like a frog than a bird. That is less of a concern. Love, like a bird, can sometimes become love, like a frog.




Resolved: use spackle whenever possible.








Originally posted August 2011

Project 7: Whale Stapler

The original idea was for a whole whale on the top part of the stapler. But that didn’t seem right, because in the wild you never see a whole whale with the bottom half of a stapler stuck underneath it.





Better then to make the whale and the stapler coterminal. This way it could fit right in on a shelf at Office Depot or on a continental shelf in the great blue deep.

Katy: Was this our only stapler?

Me: Yes.

Katy: Does it still work?

Me: I don’t know. The baleen-paint on the staple magazine might make it more likely to jam now.

Originally posted July 2011

Project 6: Gorilla Multi-Head Trivet

Real gorilla heads are also naturally connected this way.

This project arose because we had nowhere to put our dishware.







I was really tempted to keep going and make a grid of thousands of gorilla heads, and then use it to hold up the world’s largest frying pan. Someday.









Originally posted June 2011

Project 5: Armadillo Handled Toothbrush

Prototype for an idea first suggested on the excellent blog http://dumbcoffeeshopideas.wordpress.com/












Ergonomic for easy handling





I didn’t mean to take so long with this project, but I was beset with difficulties.
First I developed respiratory problems from all the sawdust in our apartment,
and couldn’t continue carving until Katy came home with some surgical masks.






Then, once I could breath again, I accidentally decapitated and dismembered
the first armadillo. I started over, and so went the legs on the second armadillo!
At that point I decided it would be better to just fuse some toothpicks together
with wood glue, which is sort of how real armadillo legs look anyways. They
dried upright in some potting soil.



Breeding legs out of the dead land.




Originally posted April 2011

Project 4: Gorilla, Gorilla and Crab Toothbrush or Pen Holder

Started with one gorilla head, then it grew.





Versatile - For home office or for bathroom.





Attaching the two heads in a durable fashion was a precision job
that required many toothpick dowels.




Almost drilled a hole in my hand a few times when performing
the brain surgery.



Originally posted April 2011

Project 3: Hippo Key Holder

Inspired by:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3NueKXS6dk








The hardest part of this project was shaping the mouth, which required cutting straight down into the grain. This was pretty much impossible until I sawed deep lines down into the grain and then used the knife to strip down vertically from the saw cuts.



Originally posted April 2011