Featuring the Art Work of Mike Stinnett
Here’s the full video on how I made a Chickadee and Blackberry Bramble walking stick! If you’re interested in some of the tools I use or recommend, check out the link below.
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I just keep working my way upward on this Chickadee and Blackberry Bramble walking stick. It is ending up being much more detailed than I realized it would be when I first started. I seem to have a habit of making my job harder and harder with each new project.
My next step is to establish the diameter of the hand grip. As shown in one of my previous posts, the hand-grip will be Blackberry vine twisting around the stick’s shaft. I’m using my Arbortech Mini Grinder to make depth cuts.
After chipping away the wooden rings that I made with the mini grinder, I use this angle grinder to smooth the surface. I’ve left the shaft thicker below the hand-grip area because I still have more designing to do. But in the end I will use the same technique to reduce the rest of the walking stick’s diameter.
It took me quite a while to realize that this particular winding pattern was only possible for me to do by carving three vines instead of only one.
I started refining the shapes from the base of the design and am working my toward the top, saving the Chickadee birds for the last.
In order to carve the beaded texture in the flower centers, I used a diamond bur to carve a nice, little concave shape into a stone bur.
This technique works well for small eyes and It will also work nicely for shaping the individual sections of the blackberries.
Here I am detailing the serrated edge of the leaf using an inverted cone bur.
I use this type of bur a lot. It’s especially helpful for undermining the subjects and removing unwanted wood from negative spaces in tight places.
I’m hoping to spend a lot of time out in the country this year, and with this portable power station. I’ll be able to take my work with me.
The power station is able to power my micro motor and hand piece as well as my mini grinder. I will be testing it’s limits this summer.
Thanks again for stopping by! I’ll stick with it and keep on carving! Hope to share my progress with you next week! For those of you who are carvers or know someone who would like to carve, I’ve included some associate links to some of the tools I’ve mentioned here. To see other tools that I use or recommend you can visit my amazon associate store where I also earn fees on qualifying purchases.
As I continue to work on my Chickadee and Blackberry Bramble walking stick, I realize that it is very difficult to know how to get the size and shape of the birds to match. Also it is hard for me to imagine, while looking from the outside of the burl, where the subjects will connect and how everything will come together.
So I’ve started the project by sculpting a couple of maquettes from some oven bake, polymer clay. My added dilemma is that there are bark pockets in the burl that I have to work around.
My design is having to take a little different twist, here and there,including the second bird being turned around and facing outwardly as it looks upward. This is where the real project will have to conform to the wood material and won’t turn out identical to the concept drawing which I posted earlier.
To further help with keeping size relevance I used a caliper. This allows me have more confidence about getting my size and shapes similar.
I’ll continue to carefully work myself into this project a little at a time. Here I am using a micro motor and hand piece with Saburr Tooth burrs. These are amazing burrs for removing wood quickly in the rough out stage.
I’m adding vines, leaves, blossoms and berries, as I go, trying to keep everything connected and supported so it won’t break off easily.
Thanks for stopping by! I hope to continue sharing my progress on this walking stick. You can find some of the tools I use or recommend here:
As an Amazon associate I earn fees for qualifying purchases.
I’m carving a brand new, custom ordered walking stick. It has a couple of Chickadees and some Blackberry Vines. I’d like to show you how this is coming along and share some of the tools that I used.
I started with this naturally shaped Pine Burl and began by removing unwanted parts of it with a DeWalt Reciprocating Saw. I really like the fact that this is cordless and it will be just the right thing for me to take my work out into the countryside for some beautiful views.
I’ve saved a selected branch coming off of the burl, to serve as the tail of the bird on the top. That way the wood grain will be strong and keep the tail from breaking off. The DeWalt Oscillating Multi Tool worked great to make a starting point.
Click to Purchase the DEWALT Oscillating Multi-Tool
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I continued to carefully remove bits of unwanted material to begin revealing the shape of my top Chickadee.
I also used my Arbortech Mini Grinder to help me do some shaping.
I use this tool a lot. It’s a fast way to remove material. I use it to make depth cuts and to shape. So, below is a picture of the beginning of my Chickadee and Blackberry Bramble walking stick. I have a lot of work to do and I hope you’ll come back to see my progress. If you’re looking for some power carving tools I hope you’ll check out the links to Amazon that I have given.
(as an Amazon Affiliate I earn fees on qualified purchases)
Buy this Copperhead Cane on Etsy.com
This one-of-a-kind walking cane is carved and painted to resemble a Copperhead Snake. Carved from a single piece of Lodgepole Pine wood, hand painted and signed and numbered #84 by Mike Stinnett.
This 2-7/8 -inch Brook Trout has been carved by Mike Stinnett from a single piece of Pacific Yew wood and hand painted. It is strung on a real, steel fishing swivel with a key chain ring added. It is completely 3-D.
