Post #192996 by Aaron's Akua on Sun, Oct 16, 2005 4:44 PM

Here’s some further advancements in my evolution of Lono…

The cracking in this log is advancing at an alarming rate. I showed this one to my neighbor, who commissioned the piece. She seemed a little iffy on the huge crack down the front, so I offered to carve her another instead at a later date using something more stable. This one I’ll keep as our own “Ohana Tiki”. I think the cracking will look okay, as I’m going to use an aged look for the stain & finish. It should all tie in together. All the same, I think I’ll go through my stockpile and convert all the cracked looking logs into firewood. Carving wood takes time, finding wood is not really a problem. If you are going to put lots of time into a carving, you should probably use the best material you can find.

I’ve finally taken the oft given advice of doing a small sample piece to test the stain. The Red Mahogany stain on the left will be for the body & face, the hair tie, and the middle parts of the headpiece. The Ebony stain on the right will be for the uprights, hair, frame around the eyes, and the pedestal. The textured tile triangles will go in as eyes, inset down into the wood.

Hopefully I’ll be able to post some pics of the staining process in a week or so, then final “Finished Projects” pics soon after, right before my Ohana & I leave for Maui on vacation to rest, relax, & charge up the ole’ “A-A” batteries.

Cheers!

A-A