Learning from mistakes, and how I do not do it.

With Maren being gone to work, I find myself with ample time to carve here. And I have been taking and enjoying that time. Having finished the cup from my last blogpost, I figured I`d make a spoon to go with it. So far so good. 

The process of these went quite smoothly, and I was feeling good about it, so the next day I made a small cup and a teaspoon to add to what I began to call "the royal family", due to the crownlike decoration I carved on the handles.

But my production-run of royal family-members seems to have stopped there. The axe giveth, and the axe taketh away. Since then I have broken all the things I attempted with poor axework. This cup here was the first thing to go. Just before I was to start smoothing it out and putting the final bevels on the rim and edges, I noticed the pressure crack in the wall. This crack must have formed way earlier on in the process, when I was carving out the handle. For that purpost I had to chop in the direction of the bowl, but in doing so I started a crack that is now unstoppable, except maybe with glue.

Not too bad, these things happen, and at the very least it would teach me a lesson of care with the axe, right? Well, apparently my learning curve is not so steep... I chopped two spoons in half today that I was carving because the chance of them succeeding would be way larger than for yet another cup. I have learned my lesson now though, I hope. Tomorrow another day, with more wood to turn into kindling! Things to watch out for? 1. Carve the delicate neck on a spoon with a knife, not with a sharp 1 Kg lump of steel on a stick. 2. Kuksa-handles may require stop-cuts. 3. Learn from the mistakes, then the time is not (entirely) wasted.  

Vacation. Icecream, camping and carving.

I am currently spending some really good time celebrating my vacation, as usual in Norway. I had planned on doing a lot of carving but it just has not really happened yet. I have been busy doing many lovely things though. The country in summer is so nice. There are loads and loads of wild berries on the bushes, and the fjords are bursting with fish. We have therefore done loads of berry picking and a bit of fishing. We have had fun processing the berries into icecreams, and into syrups. Raspberry-Yoghurt icecream is a great thing.

We have not only been making raspberry-icecream, but have been playing around with many flavours since we picked up a nice little machine.

Besides spending time on good foods, we have also been hiking and swimming quite a bit. It has been excellent weather here. On one hike my girlfriend Maren and me came across a lovely place with a bit of field next to a stream that ran out into the fjord. I resolved to go back there to test a tent that we bought in a sale. A McKinley Vega for €30,-. I could not not buy it. It will serve very nicely while my actual tent and most of my camping gear is in the Netherlands. A trip report of my camping trip can be found here. Since Maren is working this week, it was my first ever solo-camping trip, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It is awfully nice to spend a night next to a fire, sipping tea and watching the tide go in and the sun go down.

Of course I have not been completely idle on the carving-front. While being here I managed to get enough time set apart to carve a simple noggin/kuksa in birch. It has been made over several days, carving a bit whenever I had time. I am not entirely pleased with the rim, but I will leave it like this until it is dry and I can carve it more safely without the fibers tearing out. It is now sitting in a paperbag with some green wood shavings to slowly dry.

On Cherry-kuksas, France, and birchwood.

After the cracked alebowl of two weeks ago I started to work on a kuksa from the same cherrywood that the bowl was from. And while that one was drying and I had to wait before I could finish it without discoulouring (the cherrywood dries to a deep orange if you carve it this wet) I figured I`d start another one in the meantime. My sexy new axe makes such short work of hewing end-grain that shaping the cups has become much easier for me. And I enjoy that a lot. Combined with my adze I can now carve a kuksa over two days, where before it would take me many more. Also, the shape of my cups has improved a bit. I used to have a chunky bit of wall under the handle that I couldn`t seem to get rid of, but I can now hew it away nicely. When the cups had dried a bit in a box with shavings I oiled them wilth coleseed-oil and put them away for more drying.

These cups are rather large. The smaller one is nearing 2.5 deciliters, and the large one with chipcarving detail is around 4 deciliters. I am pleased with the colours of the wood, and with how the cups fall in my hand. The tooled finish could be better though. I`d like to be able to carve the inside smoother, with smaller toolmarks. That might come with more practice. 

Besides carving, I have been busy with what other people like to refer to as "the real life" as well. I have been working daily at my internship in the IBL MCB research group where I work on a project that focusses on developping a new method for single-molecule imaging and tracking in live cells. While I enjoy this work very much I am very happy that a few days ago, my summerholiday finally started! Right at the first day I went away from Life, the Universe and Everything and travelled to France where I met up with my parents and sister. In France I spent a few lovely days walking, eating cheeses, drinking wine, and most of all: carving besides the fire. I made a few things that trip.  A two-handled whisky cup (Quaich), a small kuksa-style cup and two spoons.

I have really enjoyed carving freshly felled birchwood. It carves so easily and it dries out so nice and hard. I hope to carve more of it in the time to come, when I get to swing my axe in Northern Europe again.

Things that crack in the night.

The phrase "A cracking bit of work" is usually well received. However, when my carvings decide to take that phrase literally, I am less pleased. Usually I am very strict in my drying-policy to prevent cracks but this time things went a bit different. I left the bowl out on the table to show it to someone. Just after I showed it, the world-cup game NL-MEX started. I thought: "I should tug the bowl back into the bag", but for some reason figured it could wait a while. The game had already started, and the bowl slipped from my mind for 90 exciting minutes. Then I thought of it again. I inspected it, and saw some thin black lines. It didn`t look very deep so I didn`t worry much and put the bowl in the bag where it belonged. The next morning the cracks had opened up to full grown work-demolishers.

When I posted my cracked bowl in a carving group on facebook, I got replies from Jarrod Stonedahl and Ingo Dyrkton. While I have to admit that it is somewhat intimidating to end up in a direct conversation with crasftsmen whom I regard as some of the popstars of the carving world, it is also very inspiring and helpful. Jarrod said that his bowls rarely crack, because they are so thin. Both agreed that my bowl probably cracked because it was too thick. At that point I knew what I had to do, but really did not want to: Split the bowl, and see how thick it is. I grabbed my hatchet, and before I could think too much about all the work that went into it I split it.

I am quite pleased that I split the bowl, even though it was a horrible thing to have to do. I have now learnt two things: 1. It split because it was too thick. The wall is about two cm thick, while I should aim for about 1 cm. This should give the wood the flexibility to warp with the drying, and not split. 2. I have carved an even wall thickness, and I am quite pleased with that. It means I did at least something right.

To get over this cracking bowl, carving something else would surely be the remedy, so I started a cherry kuksa.  I have added a picture of the thing in a rough stage. With this kuksa I am focussing in thin walls, and also on bulk removal on the outside of the bowl, under the handle. That is where earlier kuksas have quite a bit of weight left, that give them a lumpy feeling. While the kuksa is now thin enough to dry without me worrying about it, I have still tugged it deeply into a bag with fresh woodshavings. I am not taking any risks with this one!