Shredder

[snoball]

Those are some fantastic ivory carvings. I would think that Ivory would be very hard to carve. I've seen some gorgeous jade carvings also but I can't imagine carving jade either.

 

[musket]

Ivory is actually scraped rather than carved. You don't take cuts in it as you would when whittling, or doing woodcarvings in soft wood like bass or limewood, or even medium hard wood like mahogany or maple, with gouges and such. Boxwood is also scraped, but can also be carved by taking very, very fine shavings off a little at a time. This all assumes that the piece in question is fairly complicated. Otherwise, ivory can also be worked with burs and files, as can box and other very hard woods. The cruder the piece, the less finicky the tools required. Those African ebony masks that so influenced Picasso are a case in point (I've never liked them). Carved with very crude tools

The bill of this hummingbird is elephant ivory-- actually a discarded saddle from an old Martin guitar which had been cut to nothing in order to lower the action (string height), when the instrument really needed a neck reset. I power carved it with burs and finished it off with a scraper. It's around .040" thick at the base, then tapers from .030" to .020" to a needle tip. The nares (nostrils) were cut with a tiny diamond ball. The bird itself is 2 1/4" long from crown to tip of the tail. It's a male snowcap, the only hummingbird with a pure white crown, a rare resident of Surinam.



Jade is a whole other ballgame and of course cannot be cut with steel. All jade "carvings" are ground. Jade can be extremely recalcitrant about taking a good polish. I never tried it, never even cut any cabochons of jade.

 

[snoball]

I like that little hummer Musket, he must be just about life sized.
I have no penchant for carving either ivory nor jade. I've carved a bit of wood here and there but I'll just stick with painting.

 

[musket]

The entire piece.

Tupelo
Acrylics and shell gold (23KT gold powder in gum arablic)
Ivory
Black jade
Two part epoxy putty
24KT gold leaf
Opal
Moonstones
Snakewood
Around 6" high

Snowcaps have surprisingly large feet, for hummingbirds. We named him Schweppes, after Commander Whitehead in the old TV commercials for Schweppes tonic water and bitter lemon. Snakewood is extremely hard and crack prone, mostly used for the butt ends of high class pool cues, and is indigenous to Surinam, as is this species.

 

[snoball]

It's beautiful Musket. I still favor the birds of prey and the otter.

 

[musket]

Thanks.

Arty's right--I hijacked this thread away from her cool paper piece, by mistake. I assumed, duh, that it was a general thread for showing pieces. I truly am getting foggy in me old age. So, only one more post and no more work.

I made this piece, and several other pieces with hummingbirds in such settings, combined with semi-precious stones (I started doing lapidary a year before I started carving) for a specific target audience-- guys with deep pockets looking for a unique gift for the wife, girlfriend or mistress. It wasn't what I preferred to do, but there are zillions of people doing raptors.

It worked; every piece sold quickly for good money.

Sorry, Arty. My bad.

 

[Artyczar]

Don't worry Musket. Now my thread is more interesting. But maybe next time you'd like your own thread for your own sculptures. Up to you of course.