AusBonsai

Hi All

I was wondering if anyone has bought any carving tools from Rudi Spanko, I emailed him about prices and he sent me prices and pictures of what he has, I then sent him an email asking how I go about ordering stuff and never heard back from him, I sent him another one and still nothing. Does anyone know if he's gone out of business or something

regards
peterb

I bought one from him back when Will Baderley first mentioned them here last year. Had no probs with communication and I love the tool.

hi tony
thanks for the answer, i don't know whats going on it's like he just disappeared, we were communicating back and forth till i asked how to place an order and it's been 3 1/2 weeks from the last email i sent guess i'll have to order from kaizen in the uk
regards
peterb

Peterb, I bought two carving tools from him in Nov last year. They work as well as those I bought from Kaizen and those I bought from Taiwan. Only difference is the ones from Kaizen don't stain. While the others all have stain marks. So those from Kaizen look as good as new after cleaning while I have difficulty removing the stains from the others. The last communication I have from him was in April about some new bits. Hope this helps.

CJ

Thanks mate
I'm heading to the UK in Sep. If he hasn't returned my email by then i'll just get them from kaizen and save the freight. I was looking at his because they come in a lot cheaper
regards
peterb

Hi Gang,

This is semi related, I just got my first carving tool its a dremel stylus. I have tried a few different bits but what would best bit for hollowing out a trunk?

Thanks

The dremel is very slow if you want to remove a lot of wood, normally it is just used for detail work. If there is a lot of wood to remove you would normally use a die grinder with a tool like those mentioned above.

Bougy Fan wrote:The dremel is very slow if you want to remove a lot of wood, normally it is just used for detail work. If there is a lot of wood to remove you would normally use a die grinder with a tool like those mentioned above.

Thank you bougy

What a waste of.money!! Damn well at least I can use it for polishing my car keys or something

Well you can't carve with a 1/4" shank tool and have it look finished and realistic. Normally in the Dremel to finish off I use a mutli purpose bit. Then get a gas torch and burn off all the fibres created when carving. The use a wire wheel in the dremel to clean it up. You can get some strutured carbide cutters that will fit in the dremel to take a bit more material out but they just don't have the torque to remove heaps of wood. Have a look at widgetsupply.com in the US. I buy all my dremel stuff there - even with postage it is much cheaper than buying from the big green shed.

thanks for the info on that widgetsupply i'm going to have a look right away
regards
peterb

On the other hand... I just did this olive with a Dremel. I have the Kaizen bits for major excavation and then the Dremel bits for refining and a bit of digging as well. Yes, a die grinder would have been nice but I could not have reached the areas I reached with the Dremel. I actually bought a replacement thinking I was going to blow this one up because the previously carved areas were rock solid hard but it held up. The base of the olive is 15 cm across and it was a lot of removal work. There are a lot more holes, channels and 'eaten away trunk' that you can't see in these photos. The trunk is very honeycombed. What fun. Because of the difficulty of access to all the channels I used Dremel bits to delicately file away the roughened wood rather than the wire brushes. It worked quite well. I will do as I usually do, leave the tree for a couple of weeks and then go back and refine just a bit more but I'm pleased with the look. Can't take much more away or there won't be anything left.

hi, I purchased 5 bits from Rudi about three months ago and love them and had no issues with email or having them sent out to me rspanko@gmail.com here is the email address I used

Hi Nathan
thats the adress i used conversed a few times and then he just vanished, i'll try it again and see

regards
peterb