Carving Wood Dolls

steve kelly

Member
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265
I did a little wood carving a few years back using maple wood but I had to stop because of neck and back problems...My wife loves dolls so I decided to start back about a year ago by carving a doll of my granddaughter Tessa...I still have back and neck problems so I have to limit myself to only working about an hour at a time.....So far I seem to be doing okay with that.....Since then I have carved 4 dolls: 4 year old Tessa; A 10 year old girl from Russia that was adopted by a friend of my wife's; Marie Osmond; and Johnny Bench and his locker room cubicle....all done in maple which I find is a very hard wood to carve...But I use maple because I can get it a lot cheaper then Basswood....I also make my own carving tools...A lot of them I make out of old files that I find at garage sales....They work really great and they stay very sharp.....You can also make knives out of sawzall blades......Tessa P1100110.jpg ; Russian girl P1110773.jpg; Marie Osmond P1090812.jpg; Johnny Bench P1110461.jpg; I carved Johnny's Glove, his shin guards, his faceguard, his chest protector. his shoes, his helmet, and his clothes P1110062.jpg...It's a lot of fun but sometimes I get frustrated because I don't have any training back ground in art or carving...So it's all trial and error with me.....I've tried a couple of relief carvings that turned out okay...and I have dabbled a little bit in burn burning....I love that wood art medium...But I need to get better at that.....steve
 
You may complain of not having any real training, but boy, did you get likeness down! Great carvings. You havev found what works for you and your pocketbook. I suspect you are having fun, so carry one, my friend. Love to see more of your work.

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Dang, frustrated you may be but your also quite good in my opinion. The body work is really quite good, excellent proportions and shape!

One thing I've found that helps with the back and neck issues is improved work holding setups. My setup is still pretty suboptimal, but every time I make it better it's less painful as well.

Would love to see some of your tooling as well :) :thumb:
 
Thats terrific carving! I don't know how much better you could get. Those are great. You are beyond the need for formal training. You are working in the realm of gifted artist. One new guy to another new guy, welcome to the form.

Bill
 
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I appreciate all the kind comments...I didn't really know what to expect....I know that there is a lot of very good carvers out there and I was a little afraid to join in..... thank you all very much for the welcome!
 
Welcome Steve, I have to chuckle when you say you not good. I enjoy carving and am really a rank amateur on a scale of 1 to 10 I am a minus.
But I entertain my friends here with my attempts from time to time. if I had your sense of proportions and artistic talent I would be delighted.
So happy to have another carver join. like Ryan said I would also love to see your tools I have a few old files I was going to toss out but held onto and now I am glad I did.

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I know that there is a lot of very good carvers out there and I was a little afraid to join in.....

You're one of them :) Definitely no need to be afraid to step in show what you have going on. Carvers are a friendly bunch and so are woodturners and flatwork folks and.. well.. heck they're all pretty friendly in general.

thank you all very much for the welcome!

And thank you for sharing your work!
 
Here's one of the knives I use that's made from a file....You've got to be careful not to over heat the file while grinding, which I've done before, or you will loose the temper....I've also made drill bits that makes the socket in the ball and joint by rounding off spade bits. P1110862.jpg
 
Looking at the knife everything seems straight forward enough except the handle and I can't for the life of me figure out what you did there. It would appear to have been wrapped around itself which implies having been heated, but then you talk about not over heating it when grinding so if that was the case then it would have had to have been re-tempered.. so maybe those were two different things?

Regardless its certainly a nice looking piece of kit.
 
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