Quilceda Carvers Show - with pictures

The Quilceda Carvers are based in Snohomish County. That's the county just north of Seattle (King County) and the show was in Monroe.

It was held at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in the Beef Cattle Pavilion. We're not sure if that's a statement in itself.

These are called Chinese Balls and are a real "How'd you do that" sort of thing. Inside this ball there are 6 concentric smaller ones. Fred Holder held a demonstration on how he does it. It involved a chucking system that he made and some special lathe tools. Check out Fred's books on the subject.

 The Northwest Driftwood Artists were right in the middle of things. These guys don't actually carve or reshape the found driftwood pieces at all. All they do is clean it, sand and scrape it, and wax it. This is nature's art as nature formed it. The close up below is a piece of maple and shows what is literally under the surface.

The Quilceda show includes a judged competition. This is a wizard head by Thomas Parkes of Richmond B.C. The celtic knot inlay appears to be maple. It's about 3 feet tall and really catches the eye. We're not sure who this actually is, but he probably played cards with Gandalf.


This owl was carved by Diana Galloway of Stanwood.We were impressed enough with the detail, especially the eyes. But she said that she carved him with a chainsaw! A very small chainsaw for sure, and over a long time but wow!

This magnificent carving of Raven and the Box of Light was done by Harvey Nelson of Sammamish. The native people of the Pacific Northwest tell a story of how the world was always dark in the early times because Grandfather kept the sun hidden in a box. Raven tricked Grandfather into showing him the sun in the box. Raven flew off with it and put it in the sky to give people light. Ravens are smart after all.

Grip-All Jaws didn't sell much at the Quilceda Carvers' show because the weekend was stunningly beautiful and warm, but no one did very well sales-wise. There wasn't the traffic there would have been on a rainy day. But sunshine, 70+ degrees, the beautiful Skykomish River - who could blame them.

Quilceda Carvers Show

We will be at the Quilceda Carvers Show the weekend of April 21. It's always a good well attended show. They have it at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in Monroe, Wa.

They moved away for a year or two but now they're back.

http://www.quilcedacarvers.org/bbs/

Antlers to Art

Richard Lewis of Napels, Florida does fine, intricate work carving antlers. Moose antlers. We didn't want to crowd the Gallery article with the pictures so we put them here.

Click here to go to the User Gallery Article.

 

Drilling on the mark

We woodworking types all need to drill holes and they often need to be on an exact spot.

To help accomplish that we can borrow from the machine shop world. That would be a center finder.

 A center finder is a hardened steel cylinder and the tip is held on with a tension spring.

To use it, put it in a drill chuck. Push the tip off center and turn on the drill press at a low speed between 500 and 1000 RPM. You don't need any more than that.

With the chuck spinning, put slight pressure against the side of the tip until the wobble stops. I once worked with a guy that used his finger nail - he had 9 1/2 fingers. Use a screwdriver.

Now the point is exactly on center with the axis of the spindle. Use it to align with your center punch mark or crosshairs.
If you look closely, you can see that the first attempt is a bit off center. I fixed that with a center finder.

 

"Free" Advertising addendum

Well, we subsequently found out who these people are. The seated fellow with the mighty beard is Fred Cogelow and the lady standing over him is Lennie Williams. Absolute master carvers, the both of them. Having either of them sit at the helm of a Grip-All Jaws Tilt-Top Portable is sort of like having Eric Clapton play one of your guitars.
Check out Lennie's page in our User Gallery.
And here is a feature story about Fred and his magnificent work.

"Free" Advertising

This picture is from page 14 of the Jan/Feb 2012 Wood Carving Magazine from Great Britain. This article was about the 2011 International Woodcarving Congress that took place in Maquoketa, Iowa.

We don't know who the carver is nor the onlooker. Nor do they identify the really cool carving vise he is depending upon to securely and safely hold his work piece. This obvious oversight is excusable - - ok it isn't, and as R.P. Myers said, 'it's only advertising if they identify us." But it's way cool to see it anyway.

Cheap workbench

We were strolling through the local Re-Store - you know the place that sells used building materials from torn down houses. Anyway, they have loads of doors. This is a door that is 3' wide and 7' long, light, being hollow-core, strong, and flat. AND it was only $20.

Add some a-frame legs like you would find for saw horses and Voila! A cheap, large, flat, strong workbench.

In my case, I set it on an old student desk and used the drawers for storage. Also I used the doorknob hole as a pass-through for cords.

Now that's recycling!