Savage Celtic Cross

I’ve had a long love affair with Celtic crosses. They are a wonderful fusion of art and religious meaning. I thought I would take it one step further and fuse another element – a personal family element. My sister recently celebrated her birthday, and I never know what to get that’s unique, so I thought I would carve her very own Celtic cross. Her surname is ‘Savage’ hence the name at the base of the cross.

This was a quick project. I used a compass and protractor and some high school geometry to lay it out on a sheet of paper. Then I transferred the drawing onto a piece of American black walnut. I roughed it using my bandsaw, drill press, and coping saw. Then I set the levels with a chisel (for the straight edges) and gouges (for the curved edges, and carved down to those levels, taking care to carve across the grain and using a slicing motion with the gouges to ensure a burnished finish with no tear-out.

A couple of coats of tung oil and this is the finished project:

Celtic Cross

About the carving:

It’s carved in American Black Walnut, approximately 12 inches long by six inches wide and one inch thick. It’s finished in Tung Oil. It’s not for sale, but I can make one like it for you if you wish.

Zen Trout Carving

In my last post, I mentioned that I was working to overcome some challenges that seemed overwhelming, and I was just trying to carve something fun and easy and just-for-myself. See for yourself how it turned out:

I had fun with this one, although it changed a number of times. At first, I thought about making it highly detailed, scales and all. But that was premature – the wood, yellow cedar, likely wouldn’t have supported that much detail. Then I thought about making it stylized, creating an impression rather than representing reality. Along the way, I tried blurring those lines a little, but then my wife convinced me that this carving was really a Zen trout trapped in a log (actually, an old power pole).

This is designed to hang on the wall, and be viewed by looking up above you at it. I carved it in such a way that the fins and tail would look best from that angle. If looked at directly over the back (or dorsal fin), the trout looks flat and featureless. If looked at from the side, the fins look too short. But looked at from the angle of the photo, it appears properly proportioned.

Here’s another view:

About the carving:

It’s carved in yellow cedar, 12 inches long by 3 inches wide and 2 inches tall. It is finished with 5 coats of tung oil, hand-rubbed and buffed. It’s not really for sale, but I could be convinced to change my mind.

Setbacks

I have been woefully neglectful of this blog, and for no good reason except that I recently moved and found sharing the garage/shop with a car to be a challenge. In our old house, we didn’t even attempt to park our car in the garage. However, in our new place parking is limited and the car must go in the shop/garage. This meant getting rid of my wonderful cabinet saw and replacing it with a portable bench-top table saw which might be more aptly named a tablet saw. A minor setback in the grand scheme of things.

I got the bench-top table saw tablet saw on a sweet deal at our local big-box store, which was selling it “as is”. They said it had been used as a demo. After digging around inside the guts of the saw I could find no sawdust (“Psst! Honey, I don’t think this saw’s ever cut a piece of wood!”), so I decided it was suitable and the price was too good to be true. Which it was.

It had no fence. They couldn’t find it. I bought it “as is”. The lack of a fence turned into an issue. I couldn’t find one anywhere. The store wouldn’t order me one – the deal was “as is”. They gave me a couple of websites I could try, which I did. Nada. Service phone numbers for tools are horrible. I sat for an entire afternoon trying to get through a phone tree, but there were too many branches and the muzak made me grumpy. I slammed the phone down resigned to never having a fence again and never making anything out of wood again – EVER!

This was a serious setback.

Unbeknownst to me, my loving wife was listening. When I came home from stomping around the new neighborhood like a grumpy old bear just out of hibernation, she told me she’d ordered me a new fence! Just like that. LOVE! A short drive to the store and

With all these setbacks overcome, I decided it was time to get back in the gara… er… shop and get carving. I decided I was going to reward myself with a rare chance to carve just for the sake of carving. No commissions, no clients, just me and inspiration.

Trout Carving

I decided a rainbow trout carving in high relief would be in order, and I had a nice straight grained piece of yellow cedar that I was itching to carve. I pulled out my favourite carving tool: the bandsaw. After turning it on, I pushed the cedar into the blade but it didn’t seem to be cutting very quickly. I shut the saw down and checked the blade which seemed a little dull. I got out a new one and proceeded to change it. After installing it, setting the tension, spinning the wheels to make sure the blade ran true and making sure the guides were all set properly, I turned the saw on again. I pushed the wood into the blade and got LESS cutting action this time! How could this be? I turned the saw off and heard something spinning long after the engine stopped running. It turns out that the key that joins the pulley to the axel of the engine had disintegrated. Yet one more setback!

I spent several hours shaping a new key to fit, only to discover the true problem. The set-screw holding the key in place was stripped. There was no way to keep the key in place anymore. I was screwed. Another setback.

It was at this point that I became determined that there would be no more setbacks. Fortunately, I’d had a good apprenticeship in using hand tools under my father’s watchful eye. Out came the cross-cut saw. Out came the rip saw. Out came the coping saw. In a half-hour, out came the general shape of a rainbow trout.

Band saw mess; Rip saw fix

Band saw mess; Coping saw fix

No more setbacks. I mean it!

(If anyone has any ideas on how to fix my band saw, I’m listening.)

Grant

An Ode to the Man Who Got Me Started

I owe a lot to my father. On the 5th anniversary of his death (cancer took him at 67), I miss him now more than ever. Now that my wood carving business is starting to take off, I know he would have loved to be involved. I wish he was.

Victor & Sharon's Wedding Day

He was always involved – the best dad in the world. I’ve said in previous posts that he was born in the woods and was never very far away from wood all his life, and consequently I was always close to wood too. He built his first and only house in 1972, and there’s approximately one square foot of plywood in the deck that has at least 15 nails in it that I hammered when I was 4 years old, “helping” to build the house. In 1974 he built a desk for my bedroom using hand tools and a skill saw. It’s still in my old room, serving as a computer desk now. In grade 8, he helped me fix up a project I was doing in my school wood shop class. In grade 12, his mentoring in the basement shop helped me win the shop award for my high school.

He worked for BC Hydro for 28 years, but he probably should have been a cabinet maker or joiner and furniture maker. I mean, check out this dresser he made for my wife and I. Wow.

Oak Dresser made by Vic McMillan

The drawers fit perfectly and glide nicely, yet there’s not a nail or screw or piece of hardware in it except for the handles. From the outside it looks like a nice piece of furniture, but it’s the hidden joinery that truly sets this piece apart. It’ll never split or warp. The drawer faces are bookmatched from lumber that he resawed. It’s an heirloom piece for sure!

He gave me my first carving tools and got me started carving in 1995. When he passed away, he also passed on his shop tools – like a cabinet saw, jointer, and 14 inch bandsaw that are tuned and set up ‘just so’. With those tools, he created beautiful and useful pieces like this jewelry box he made for me:

Jewelry Box by Vic McMillan

It’s made out of maple and walnut, and like all his work, everything fits tightly and perfectly. There’s even a secret compartment, which he must have had fun creating.

My father, Victor McMillan, taught me a love of wood and a love of creating new things. He was never really afraid to tackle any project, large or small, although sometimes it took him a while to think things through. He passed on his knowledge of how wood ‘works’ which helped give me a good foundation for carving. For example, he helped me understand how grain direction influences the strength of a piece of wood, and how important it is to cut wood the right way so as to avoid warping and wood movement. It was through him that I learned about how to avoid cracks as wood dries and even how to “stretch” wood (a trade secret).

Best of all, he passed on his love of God and creation to me and many others. He inspires me to do the same.

Who inspires you? Whose work of creation do you admire? Who are you inspiring?

Carving a Family Crest, Final Installment

Welcome to the final post about the carving of the Bailie family crest. Yesterday I left you with a mostly-finished carving. What was left to complete was a final preparation of the two banners, or ribbons, at the top and bottom, the letters for the name and the Latin phrase, and then the finish, or top-coat of the carving.

The edges of the banners needed to be smoothed out and ‘softened’ which meant that I needed to take my micro V-gouge (from Flexcut tools) and cut along the sides so that the banners made a nice arc. Also, the V-gouge is quite a steep V (the cutting edge looks like a small v), and I ran the bottom of the v along the edge of the banner where it rises out of the wood background. That means the V-gouge undercut the wood. Then, I carefully carved the top of the banners with a slight hollow and the edges rolling over. I managed to get that smooth enough with the gouges so that I didn’t have to sand them (phew – I wasn’t quite sure how that was going to happen).

The next step was to lay out the letters, trace them onto the banners, and cut them in. Letter carving is something that requires a great deal of precision. Most of us recognize what letters are supposed to look like, and so it’s easy to be critical of poorly designed or carved letters. Also, this was a family name, and people take great pride in their name. I needed to get this just right. First, I contacted the family to confirm the spelling. Bailie is a bit of an unusual spelling, but it was legitimate and confirmed, so I went ahead laying out the the letters on paper that matched the banners. Once I was satisfied with the look, I transferred the letters and carved them in. When I first started carving letters, I had a tendency to have a light hand – not wanting to carve too deeply in case I made a mistake. But I’m pretty confident in my letter carving, and so I went all out and carved the letters actually deeper than the banners were thick. You can see the effect the deep shadows of the letters and how it makes them stand out. I needed them to, because the rest of the carving was so dramatic that the words might get lost without something extra to make them jump out at you.

After the letters, the carving was ready to be finished. The carving called for a dark look, with an oiled, matte finish. That meant a stain, and then a few coats of tung oil. However, staining carvings is risky because stain shows up any marks or errors in carving. But I have a solution to that, something I learned through my cedar strip canoe building. This is a “trick of the trade” that I’m sharing with you in confidence (shh!)

The trick is to ‘paint’ the carving first with lacquer thinner. It’s amazing all the marks that show up when the lacquer thinner goes on. It quickly evaporates (and is highly toxic) so I do this with a lot of ventilation, usually outside. Then I clean up the spots and give it one final ‘paint’ with thinner to ensure I did it well enough.

Next was to choose a stain colour. A quick sample of 4 stains was sent to the client for choice. She chose the same colour I did – a rich, medium walnut stain. Two coats of the stain, and three coats of tung oil later, and here is how it turned out!

Bailie Crest Completed

The completion of this carving also coincided nicely with an art show that I enter in each year. I entered this carving in it and won a blue ribbon (first place) for relief carvings in my category! As an added bonus to the client, I included the blue ribbon with a description of the award when I delivered the carving.

Blue Ribbon Winner

About the carving:

It’s carved in Butternut, 16″ in diameter by 1″ thick, stained and finished in tung oil. The name “Bailie” is carved in the top banner, and the Latin phrase, “QUID CLARIUS ASTRIS” is carved in the lower banner. It means, “You shine among the stars” or “What is brighter than the stars” and is the Bailie family motto.

I can carve you a family crest too, and depending on the size and level of detail you want, I can do so for somewhere between $300 and $400 – that’s for an heirloom quality carving commemorating your family. Contact me at gvmcmillan@gmail.com and we can talk with no obligation.

Cheers!

Grant McMillan

Carving a Family Crest, Part 4

Yesterday, I left you with a few pictures of the crest as the centre part was being carved. Today I’d like to show you how the Celtic knot was shaped. The hardest part of carving it is to make it consistent around the circle. The way I managed that was to make a template of paper, but only drew about 45 degrees of the arc. Then I turned the paper around the circle, tracing that part of the knot again and again. This ensured that each part looked the same. Then came the easy part – actually carving the wood!

Celtic knot border

At this stage, the carving is almost complete. The next stage is to shape the banners and carve letters into them. Once that’s done, all that will be left is to put a finish on the carving. Stay tuned until tomorrow evening for that part of the story.

Grant McMillan

Carving a Family Crest, Part 3

Yesterday, I left you with the family crest being roughed in (or roughed out, or bosted in – whatever you wish), which means the next step is to start carving detail in. I do not carve one piece of a carving until it’s finished; I tend to roam all over the carving, working a little here and then there, and then over there. The reason I do this is because I need to keep a sense of the whole, rather than just one part. For example, if I was carving you and just worked on your ear until it was finished, it might not match the size of your head, or be in proportion to your eyes. It’s the same with a relief carving like this. I started working on the part I was most interested in, which was the helmet, but soon was drawn to the shield, the stars, and the acanthus leaves.

Family Crest Progress

This way, as it comes together, I can make sure the depths are set correctly and the size fits the carving well before cutting too much away. In this case, I determined that the background needed to be set deeper.

Family Crest Getting There

Here you can begin to see the shape and flow of the acanthus leaves, as well as the potential of the shadows thrown by the deeper depth. I’ve only just begun to undercut the leaves, and initial shaping of the banners is coming along, but it’s still pretty rough. The Celtic border, because of it’s separation from the rest of the carving, and relative simplicity, can wait until tomorrow.

I hope YOU can wait till tomorrow too – because that’s when I’ll show you the Celtic knot taking shape.

Till next time,

Grant McMillan

Carving a Family Crest Part Two

Yesterday, I mentioned that the Bailie Family Crest had been glued up into it’s approximate size. The carving is designed in a circle, so I found the centre of the glued up blank and marked it so I could cut it on my circle-cutting jig with my band saw. There’s a highly technical method of finding the centre of a square or rectangle – you draw lines from corner to corner and where the lines intersect to make an X, that’s the middle. Did you follow that? I know, it’s much easier than it sounds (wink wink). Then I drilled a shallow hole for the centre pin of the jig and started cutting.

Once the circle was cut out, I transferred the drawing onto the wood. There are always a few tense moments as I double-check to see that the drawing fits the cutout. So much work goes into the drawing that to re-size it to fit an errant cutting job would be so disheartening. But I must have taken enough precautions because the drawing fit perfectly and I transferred it right away.

The next job was to start bosting in. That means setting the deepest point of the carving, and determining the various layers and how deep they would be. In this case, the family crest has a frame of a Celtic knot around it which would be the highest point of the carving. The background around the shield and banners would be the lowest. The shield would be in the middle and the helmet would be almost as high as the Celtic knot. The points of the stars on the shield would be somewhere between the level of the shield and the highest point of the helmet.

Here’s a picture of it bosted in:

Bailie Crest Bosted In

Check back tomorrow to see the progress.

Carving a Family Crest

Recently, Kyla from Prince George contacted me about a wood carving idea. Her husband is Scottish and is quite interested in his family lineage and he’s interested in heraldry. She wondered if I could carve a family crest for him as a surprise. She had a surprise for me: her husband already had his family crest tattooed on his back! She sent me a picture and asked if I could incorporate it into a carved crest.

If you’ve been a regular reader of my blog, you’ll know how much I enjoy working with people to come up with a finished product. This was no different. Kyla and I went back and forth by email quite a few times to talk through the development of the idea. She sent me some photos and I drew up a few concept drawings, and the idea grew into something that “just seemed right”. We agreed on a price and I went to work.

Concept Drawing of Crest

After drawing up the idea in detail, I had to select an appropriate kind of wood. Because of the size and shape of this carving, I didn’t want to take the risk of carving it out of one piece of wood. There’s too much chance of the wood warping or splitting. So I ripped the wood into smaller pieces on my table saw until they were 4″ wide by 17″ long and 1″ thick. Then I  glued them together to make an approximate square.

Did you know that watching glue dry is a very long process? It’s sort of like watching a pot of water boil… Check back tomorrow to see how it’s developing.

Spooning

If you were to sign up for a beginner carving course, chances are you would learn to carve a spoon. It’s the perfect project for a beginner because it involves many carving techniques, yet it is relatively easy and requires only a knife and a gouge. Everyone knows what a spoon should look like, so the shape is non-threatening. The shape of a spoon means that there are some parts that are fragile and require extra care to ensure that the direction of the grain in the wood will support those parts to the best advantage.

Walnut Spoon

Carving the bowl of a spoon teaches students how to hold a gouge, especially when to carve with or across the grain. Carving the neck of the spoon will show how to give the illusion of a thin, delicate neck, while actually leaving it heavier and stronger than it looks. Carving the handle will teach you how to use a carving knife while dealing with grain direction, splitting, and how to shape a gentle, comfortable curve.

Walnut Spoon 2

Finally, finishing the spoon also teaches some important points of carving. Sanding is tedious, and the better the carving technique, the less sanding is required. And the choice of what finish, if any, to use on the spoon is very important. If the spoon is purely decorative, any finish will do: varnish, wax, oil, or unfinished is fine. But if the spoon is to be used, the finish needs to be food-safe. This limits the choices down to a few, and most of these are oils or special waxes that do not contain mineral spirits or other toxins. Mineral oil, 100% natural tung oil, beeswax, or salad bowl wax are the most common choices. It’s possible to use walnut oil, but it’s a bit hard to find. Some people use olive oil or vegetable oil, but the problem with these is that they can go rancid.

Walnut Spoon 3

Why don’t you pick up a gouge with a #5 sweep, 10 millimeters wide, and a pocket knife (or carving knife), and give it a go?

About the carving:

The wood is Black Walnut. It was carved in about an hour, and finished in a natural oil finish. As you can see from the last picture, it’s about 6 inches long by an inch and a half wide.