Nursing a fever

Due to a nasty cold i had some down time. I got real sick of being sick so I went out to the shop, sharpend my tools, and finally finished this piece for one of my girls. I used the SSW method to finish it (Sand Seal and Wax) I learned from Bill Judt. I was able to get it so smooth by starting with 100 grit and working down to 220 and finally hitting it with a piece of brown paper bag. You wont believe how polished the wood starts to look after you work it with the bag. I cleaned it up with a brush and then went over it with leather to get it even smoother. Two coats of wax finished it off.
I plan to make a matching one soon.

Sent from my HTC smartphone

Sent from my HTC smartphone

Happy Father's Day!

It's quarter til one on sunday morning, father's day weekend. I'm at St. Joseph's in the Hills on my annual retreat with the six-three group of Men of Malvern. If you've never visited here before I suggest you do. It doesn't matter what race or creed you are this is strictly about spirituality. The second you pull into the property you get this overwhelming feeling of peace. Any stress or frustration you carry is left outside. You can't help but be inspired by the surroundings here. The last time I had a free minute to carve was one year ago...when I was here. I brought my tools with me again this year and started carving. I was thinking about maybe doing an angel and veered off into a little girl praying. Eleven hours later with a few smoke breaks and some walking around, here's what I have so far. I'm pretty rusty but it's starting to come back to me. It's not finished and it doesn't look like it's destined for greatness but I am so excited to be able to carve again. Hopefully I can finish this carving soon and as soon as I do I will post more pics. Happy Father's Day!
Joe

Thank You! I'm still here

Just wanted to say thanks to all the comments and emails i've been getting. I do have some projects lined up and some I've started and will be back to posting soon so please stay tuned. We are in the process of moving and I will be setup in my new shop in August or September. Among some of the projects are St. Joseph the worker and an eastern dragon, two sides of the spectrum. I will take lots of in progress pictures and work on posting a more "how to" style. Keep checking back as I may be posting some smaller projects real soon.
Thanks Again!
Joe

What I did on my vacation

So it’s been so long since my last post. A five month old and an almost three year old keep my wife and I really busy. I have started some new carving projects and will soon be back to posting so stay tuned. Our cutting board at home started breaking down. The cutting board we have has always been too small for me and now that it’s falling apart I decided we really needed a new one and I really needed to work on a project and get some sawdust in my system. I picked up some hard maple, black walnut and my father-in-law had some wenge laying around at his shop. I ripped the walnut and maple into 2” ,1.25” and .75” strips and glued them together. I then ripped across the piece into 1.25” strips and glued them together in an alternating layout with the end grain up. Then I attached the wenge around the whole piece and here is what I came up with. My wife says she doesn’t want to actually use it because it’s too nice. I just need to convince her that this board will last forever with an occasional mineral oil wipe down.