First attempt at carving

[eliass]

Hi all decided to attempt some carving on this hawthorn, any tips, advice..

Also does anyone have a tutorial on carving specifically post carving care ie wood treatment etcetera.







The photos are pretty bad will take some better ones today

[paddles]

it is hard to tell with photos, and I know from experiance that it is hard to photograph carving and have it look good, but it looks pretty good to me....

[eliass]

I really want to take the craving all the way up to the top of the trunk but it is live I don't know if it's safe to do so also what can I treat the wood with that won't make it go white?

[Pup]

I really want to take the craving all the way up to the top of the trunk but it is live I don't know if it's safe to do so also what can I treat the wood with that won't make it go white?

Add a very small amount of Sumi ink or India ink to the Lime Sulphur, try it on something other than the trunk to get the colour right.

If you have some pieces of the carving that are big enough use that.

Cheers Pup

[eliass]

Ca
n I confirm once I have finished carving run a torch over the carved area then scrub that with a metal brush then I can brush on earls wood hardener to protect the carving

[kcpoole]

Can I confirm once I have finished carving run a torch over the carved area then scrub that with a metal brush then I can brush on earls wood hardener to protect the carving

Yep that will work
Just beware burning the wood tho

Ken

[eliass]

Guys I have a little problem I applied earls harder not only on the dead wood area but also some of the live wood that I carved up to? Have I killed this tree should I run the drummer over the live wood bit to remove the hardener?







Also it has a gloss to it is there anything I can do about that?

[sharemyblessings]

I really want to take the craving all the way up to the top of the trunk but it is live I don't know if it's safe to do so also what can I treat the wood with that won't make it go white?

Add a very small amount of Sumi ink or India ink to the Lime Sulphur, try it on something other than the trunk to get the colour right.

If you have some pieces of the carving that are big enough use that.

Cheers Pup

Yes Pup you are right. I had tried adding color pigment to get the hue that I want. I had done it with my bougainvillea (http://bongbonsai.blogspot.com/2012/02/ ... a-pre.html).

Bong

[Bougy Fan]

Hi Eliass
The sheen comes with earls - so you generally use it only on something like a bougy that needs sealing or it will rot. For my liking you have applied too much heat and burnt the wood too much. I would clean up all the black wood with carving and/or wire wheel and get rid of the earls if it hasn't gone too deep. Then as Pup said tint some lime sulfur and use that. Normally the torch is only used to get rid of fibres of wood from the carving.

Tony