rainy days and Wednesdays are just fine with me

It Didn’t Just Rain Last Night it Poured

    

     The National Weather Service put the total amount of rain at around four inches but I would say in our neck of the woods, it was closer to five. It destroyed our lane but I as clueless till I drove out this evening with Mom and saw how it rutted the lane in places I haven’t seen for a while. In the midst of the rain, I went out to open the door  last night  and just see how bad it was at one point during a lull in the rain. When George bolted past me and landed in the yard. George is my cat and not always the brightest light on the street. Most cats would stand at the door and even with the slightest hint of moisture would turn around and head for the cat pan. Not George.  After repeated attempts to coax him inside he snubbed me and started heading around the corner into darkness and wet. I just figured he would surely come inside in the morning making it much easier, than me putting on my shoes and wandering around in dark calling, “Kitty,  Kitty, come here so I can break your neck.”

     Well I just turned around and was finally able to get to sleep and more rain came. And soon it was morning, and I don’t believe the rain quit all night except when George went out for his walkabout, and then it was only briefly. My first order of business was seeing if George was ready to come in.  I went to the door and it was still sprinkling and yelled for George. A blob of long wet hair and two pissed off eyes greeted me hastily, and quickly scurried of to his perch under the bench, to start the long arduous process of drying himself out and giving bath at same time. A few sniffles and a puff ball of fur later greeted me the last time I walked through the door this evening. I offered him the open door but he seemed in no hurry to leave the comforts of my fine domicile after last night. In fact it may be awhile before he tries it again.

my favorite colors in chainsaws

     I managed to cut the slab with my large chainsaw and only took me about 2 hours or two tankfuls of gas. First I had to sharpen the chain. For this I use a Harbor Freight 16.95 special, chainsaw chain grinder, which comes set with angle in one direction. The other two pitches or angles are easily achieved by adjustments on the grinder. It has saved me a ton of time and produces good sharp chain uniformly sharpened and set to right angle. I have even figured out how to cut the rakes with this same grinder allowing one to have sharp chains all the time. I used to swear by hand filing but have gave it up for this chain grinder. It has some flex especially if you try and hog the cut, all this will do is distort the cut and reduce the effectiveness of the sharpening.  This can be expected from the best chainsaw chain grinders, but I would say all in all, in affordability this unit surpasses all, and still produces good cutting chains. For some projects I like a good sharp chain especially where I am hogging material. But for fine cutting I like my carving chainsaw just a little dull, forcing me to take material off slowly rather than just slice and grab as a sharp chain does.

i can hear my teeth grinding

      My Stihl Farm Boss has a 20 inch bar, but I could have easily used a 24 or 36 for this job of slabbing, either one of these saws is the saw I need to get my hands on. So if you want a good size carving then buy me an Echo with a 36 inch bar, then we might be able to talk, or possibly carve a turkey and it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet. Pardon the puns. So it took me two passes at the huge pine log I choose for the wings of the eagle on the totem. The process of slabbing is quite simple and that is to draw the straightest line you can with a chainsaw cut from one end to the other. They have planes you can buy as well chainsaw support brackets that will allow you to slab, or saw wood lengthwise in a much neater fashion. This is not necessary as I am going to hollow the wood out of most of the uneven parts anyhow. No one will ever see it, so don’t tell anyone ok. It seems as if there are a lot of things you can use as an aide to help you do the job faster or neater, but then again, I doubt if you have been to my shop.

chainsaw chain grinder

slab, little one is almost a foot and half wide

     This reminds me I still haven’t found my air blow gun for blowing the dust and wood chips out of the chainsaws. I have a lot of stuff that seems to get organized by where I last left it or used it. So if I had all those fancy tools like Bob Villa, or others I wouldn’t know where I left them all anyhow and would spend hours searching for those tools going  around in circles dragging my bum leg in the dust of the woodchips at my feet mumbling. Looking like the tired old hands of a church steeple clock arm, spinning in circles, watching time fly by, and wandering why I am not getting the carving done. So one tool does it all and mostly it is the chainsaw. Second is the grinder and third is the drill. With these 3 tools and a of course a chainsaw and chainsaw chain grinder, one could easily achieve pro carver status in days. Come on folks a little imagination wouldn’t hurt here either.

      Slabbing a piece off a log is a hard job and requires patience, but in the end I grabbed a couple of hatchets because of their wedge shaped heads and inserted one in the log and tapped on the other hatchet driving the first one deeper into the cut splitting the log apart easily. I spent the rest of the time getting the mid-size chainsaw prepared and sharpened for tomorrow as I begin to detail the wings and finish the carving on totem hopefully. There is still a lot to do. Even after I carve the wing form out I have to check the wing’s alignment on the totem. This could take me a couple of days to get to the point I dowel and glue the wings on. I included a pic of my chainsaws as well, a pic of my chainsaw grinder from Harbor Freight.

    I think I am up to 12 hours in time carving, and still I am not done. Maybe close to 65 percent complete. So I am down to 133 / hour at the 1600 dollars for a carving like this. Normally on simpler carvings I charge 50/ ft. So a 12 footer should be around 600 if it was simple. Getting logs this size and of this quality is expensive. As well the complexity of the carving and multiple figures, as well as external wings and a full paint job, still would consider it a deal at 1600. Just trying to keep a running tab so you as a reader may understand the price structure better, and understand what it takes to make a carving like this one.