Carving Away the Days

I've been doing a lot of woodworking. First, some wooden swords in the Japanese tradition; second, shaving strips of redwood for a large model boat; third, but most important, carving again.

These are called "bokuto" in Japan, but in the U.S. people know them as "bokken."

I made these from ash wood. My neighbor had a fallen limb, and I cut it up for him in exchange for some wood. I get most of my wood that way. Ash is perfect for such applications. It's so tough you can smash concrete blocks to bits. I already sold these two pieces... No, that's wrong. I sold the smaller one and another, heavier sword not shown.

I decided not to upload the pix of the redwood. Without something to show where it is all going, it would be boring. Here, however, a pic of me and a flamingo I'm making for a friend.

Except, I blew the head off when I nipped it the wrong way with the chain saw. No worries. I have another already carved further along than the one you can see in the picture. That wood had cracks in just the wrong spots. That's the problem with salvage wood. I keep veering towards using laminated wood and building up large pieces rather than trying to work with single chunks. But for now, I still have a large pile of wood to carve.

And that's all the news that's fit to print.