we shouldn't have animals if we can not properly care for them.

A News Item That Have Affected Me This Morn

       Lucy and I went to the Cleveland Zoo the day before yesterday and I would like to talk about it as it is as pertinent this morning as any day. Overall we had a great time. There was a lot of walking and by the time we covered most of the territory the zoo encompasses, I would suggest that anyone contemplating a visit there to be sure and make it there by opening time, and plan on spending the whole day. It opens at 10 o clock in the morning and closes at 5 o clock in the evening, and there is more than enough to be learned that it will take all that time to casually make your way around the zoo grounds.

      One of the main exhibits I wanted to see is the western lowland gorilla exhibits. My last visit to the zoo was one of honorable mention in my life and especially the gorilla exhibit. How this is related to the news item affecting me, is that I have heard where a 4 year old boy had wandered to the edge of a gorilla exhibit in Cincinnati, Ohio and dropped 10 feet into a gorilla exhibit and was grabbed by the male gorilla there and was dragged off. The wild animal response team found it necessary in the heat of the moment, to kill the male gorilla and rescue the child.

        It was a wise move to do exactly that, and what makes me mad is that it all could have been easily avoided. Number one way it could be avoided is for parents to watch your kids. Especially a 4 year old, usually there is a buffer area between the fence and where visitors are allowed to get at their closest. I doubt if Cincinnati Zoo is any different. Still the parent was not paying much attention to let their kid ever get close enough to the edge of the pen, so he could have fallen into the pen with the gorilla. A ten foot fall by itself would be bad enough for a 4 year old. Let alone being swept up by the gorilla and dragged off. What is with these parents? You are in a zoo with one of the most dangerous animals there, and you can’t take extra effort of all times to watch your kid. Come on.

        My second fault is with the zoo itself, and it has to do with my personal experience as well when I viewed the gorillas’ years ago, as compared to the other day when I visited the zoo. The new zoo enclosure since they have remodeled is much larger and has more features that allow you to view the gorillas much easier. The fences are a good 20 feet high and I am sure there are electric wires keeping them in their enclosure. Also you view the gorillas from a looking up position putting you as a spectator below the pen height. There is no area to view them from the top of the pen as compared to what Cincinnati must have. There is no falling into the pit. There wasn’t anything like that years ago, instead the last time I visited the gorilla exhibit years ago, what concerned me most has been eliminated.

     The Cleveland Zoo of years ago had a viewing area that was located inside a shelter that had windows made of bullet proof glass that were basically floor to ceiling and allowed one to fully view the gorillas. This was nice and it allowed up front, unfettered view of the gorillas. The glass was actually a two way mirror that reflected their image back to the gorillas. The gorillas could see an image of them but couldn’t see you. Or at least I thought it was that way till I entered the shelter. As I entered the enclosure a little girl from behind my family ran ahead to the window and placed her hands on the window as I entered the enclosure. As soon as I saw the gorilla he turned and looked at me and just stared and watched me as I started to cross the room with the foot traffic of other viewers. As I passed behind the little girl the gorilla, all of a sudden, jumps up from his seated position and slams himself up against the safety window directly in front of me, and at that girl, so hard I saw the glass flex out towards me and it scared the little girl, and as well, me also, with me thinking he was coming right through that glass. It scared me enough that I suggested the mom get her girl away from the window. The gorilla backed away but kept his eyes focused on me as I started to head out, not knowing if he could sense me, or what was going on but I surely didn’t want to test the limits of the window.

      As the mother grabbed her daughter and I ushered my kids way from the window and out the door, the gorilla again poised his body to suddenly thrust in my direction again and suddenly before I was out of the door of the enclosure, he unleashed his energy and again bounced off the window directly at me as I was another 10 feet away from where I was last time. He could see more than I thought. And it scared the crap out of me, as once again I saw the window flex in. Maybe it was my size. Maybe it was pheromones. Who knows what possessed him to attack, but I figured I wasn’t going to hang around and find out. That would be one scary situation and I hope it would be me he was after, instead of some child. The potential for disaster was there. And I think eventually the Cleveland Zoo must have become aware of that chance and redesigned their exhibit to include fence he would have to get through in all viewing areas. Now you can talk to the gorillas through the fence, and I guess maybe it is because he is older, but I didn’t have any response like I did when the gorillas were younger. A lot of years have passed under the bridge since then. Good thing as they have become older, so have I, and doubt I could kick gorilla butt any better than I could then.

      Still the potential for something like that to happen at the Cleveland Zoo is less likely now, than it was at Cincinnati Zoo. Still it is very sad to see an animal on the endangered species to be dispatched in such a way, when it could have been prevented. If the design of the enclosure wasn’t flawed, and if the parents would have been watching their kid , maybe this could have been prevented.  Failure on both levels lead to a tragic ending and the child fared no better. My thoughts are with that child as undoubtedly he can be no more smarter than his parents are, as genetics plays a part in intelligence, and we know the parents surely must have been shorted in that department.

news article -      https://www.yahoo.com/news/cincinnati-gorilla-killed-boy-falls-zoo-enclosure-013416464.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=fb 

burning bears

Burning a Bear

       Yesterday I had to do some re-gluing of the arm I put on the bear , and also I forgot my grinder and I realized , no matter how much I pushed it I  was not going to finish with the bear, also I should have started another bear , but was having problems with my back and so I needed to ease off on any push to start a new bear. That will be what I intend to do today. Tomorrow I am headed to the Cleveland zoo so I need to push myself a little to keep moving. Yesterday was a fairly hot day and the first of the season and it takes a while to transition you into working on these hot days. Of course a couple of minutes in the greenhouse will give you n idea of how hot and what the potential  of the sun is as temps on days like yesterday can easily soar above 110 degrees. I need to run a fan and open windows to maintain an even 90 degrees. 

 

allthough there is a color difference in the piece i replaced  , it is still the same wood as original bear is carved out of. the wild cherry is a wood that kinda oxidizes in the sunlight and longer it is left out will continue to redden. the problem is it is also subject to cracking so it is important to get the fist coat of sealer on there to stop the process oif drying out. when yu see the color difference you are looking at 3 days carved to freshly carved. it darkens that quick

 

      My chickies I started early this spring surely want me to get my butt moving quicker and make sure I get that fan working in the greenhouse before it ever gets that hot. In fact I will have to make a trip up there to assure I get it on and cool the greenhouse down. To run water out of the hose in the greenhouse that has been sitting there any length of time will wilt leaves if you don’t let it run and could easily burn your skin from the energy absorbed by the hose. . 

 

this is why i have added a saw kerf to the back of the wild cherry. i have recently done this to a lot of cherry wood as i have noticed a major problem with splitting. the kerf will allow the inner stresses of the wood from drying out to split along the lines of the kerf. a kerf is just a saw slot sawed to a depth of a couple of inches.  

       So today I plan on burning and doing sanding with my grinder and then touching up some of the areas with paint and see if I can get this bear ready for sealing maybe later today. I also like I said plan on starting a new bear. Why a bear? Because bears are the bread and butter of most carvers. You can always sell a good looking bear. There are a multitude of other projects I would like to get into but will settle for bears now. Could use the extra cash to accomplish other projects here on the farm . 

 

lily giving me her bst impression of road kill kitty. she has a sick sense of humor.

 

     My idea is to work one day on one project the next day do something else and so on. I have 4-5 outstanding projects and a multitude of other projects I should be working on. They range from the house, to carving, to a log cabin picnic pavilion. Part of this requires organization and I have been working on that also. Trying to sequester certain tools in certain locations so I don’t have to spend all day running around wondering where this and that is. Some tools overlap each other like the chainsaws, so I still need to keep them where I think I will need them the most. It’s amazing how much time is spent running around looking for something that at times you have just laid down. I am constantly grabbing wrenches I used in one place and carrying them back to the tool box. I admire people who have all their shit together and know exactly where everything is. But then in a worst case scenario I don’t know if I want to be with those people in bad times, as I doubt they have but the bare essentials to get by, whereas, I have enough of everything to build almost anything if I wanted too. I have enough spare parts and with a little ingenuity can come up with almost anything. That is just the hoarder nature of my family. 

 

hard to see but bees are busy today with a lot of hive activity. 

 

     Never know when you are going to need a four foot box fan, but I have one that requires a one horse motor to power it. It requires too much electricity to make it work, but would also make a good wind mill fan if I ever get around to it. Well back to the burning issue of the day. Burning seals the ends of the wood and also somewhat stains the wood and I use a propane torch to accomplish this. I will try and post pics but may have to substitute previous pics, as it isn’t always safe to take selfies of yourself with a torch in one hand, and camera in other. Well need to get moving as it is getting hotter and could easily blow up a thunderstorm. Can’t forget the chickies.

 

the gladiolas are blooming quite beautiful now. 

i will talk on repairing the arm today on bear i was working on yesterday

You Can Put It On

Part-2 of Repair of Bear

 

volunteer snapdragons

       Yesterday I went told you I would repair the bad area on his right arm, a place where I had taken off a knot and was hoping it would be alright but it wasn’t. Rather than throw away the whole carving I opted to fix the carving. Well yesterday I started the first step to repairing and that is removing the affected area in a clean cut that I can easily match a piece of wood to. 

 

before beginning repair . you can see where i dug out rot with the chainsaw. 

 

     After making the cut I searched the ground around where I was carving and found me a piece of the very same piece of wood that was cut off when I made the bear. I had to trim the end and you can see it in the pic and then I saturated both surfaces with water by soaking a towel and then applying it to both surfaces till thoroughly wet. This is important with the gorilla glue I use, because it reacts with water. After soaking then I apply a fair amount of glue to both surfaces. It doesn’t have to be a complete coverage, instead apply to 50 per cent of exposed wood on both sides, dabs of the gorilla glue. When pressed together in place it will usually cover 90 percent and as it reacts with water it will blow up to 150 percent of the original volume. it expands almost 3to 1 so be generous with the gorilla glue to get a good bond , but don’t get too overzealous otherwise it will be just wasted. 

 

you can see i have made sort of a notch cut and increased the exposure to help hold the piece in place  

     After applying the gorilla glue, you will need to start fitting the piece of wood to the sculpture. I did this by grabbing a strap an using it to apply pressure to hold the piece of wood in place. You will want to apply pressure in one way or another to the piece to get a tight bond. A clamp used to glue boards together may work also. But since the girth was so thick, I figured the tie down strap would work better.

 

you can see the gorilla glue before it starts to activate with the air and the oisture where i soaked the sculpture prior to applying the glue. 

 

     So I will let it sit till this morning or about 24 hrs. And if dry then will take the chainsaw and reshape the wood back down to where I think the arm should be. I will also install the eyes , and use the chainsaw to carve my brand which is my initials on it and that should finish the carving. I would like to think that would be the extent of the carving but we will have to see after finish carving of the arm. After that will be the burning of the exterior of bear. This takes off any splinters or slivers of wood and gives an overall appearance of being darker than it was before. As I wire brush the fur area and the soot will come off but some is embedded into the wood and acts like stain albeit natural. The wire brush leaves tiny hair like scratches in these darkened patches further enhancing the bears overall appearance. 

 

 here i have the strap in place plus an extra piece to help hold the larger block in place and then it is secured by the strap. this is probably the hardest part to hold the strap and blocks till you tighten it up and apply pressure to the block. 

      As to the eyes, I will use a drill and set the eyes (black marbles) ,with the drill size one larger than the marble so the fit is snug. You can always ream it by twisting the drill out of center wobbling out the hole. Care should be taken to make sure the hole is not too large and both eyes are set at same level.  To do this, I locate  the eyes and I usually err for being pointed more to center than having them too far apart. But usually by this point their location is also somewhat predetermined by the sculpting process as I leave hollows where the eyes are to be located. Sometimes you can still fudge them a little toward center. 

 

you can see i have textured the bear down to his feet. after i re-carve the arm and add my brand i wll be done carving with this bear and ready toi start another. 

 

     At this point I usually take a grinder with a flap disc and smooth the area around the nose and highlight the hair and take off any splinters I have. if you mess up you may have to reburn the bear. So  light touch on the grinder is always good. I will leave the rest of the finishing process till tomorrow’s discussion

it isnt what you think.

You Can Take it off, but You Can’t Put It On Again

 

my supervisor ms. pia  

    No, much to your dismay I am not talking about sex again. Although there may be wood in the subject, it still has to do with carving, instead of first sex between willing partners. And what I am referring to is carving in wood and the process of wood removal as opposed to sex as it becomes, well you get it. . It is different than say clay modeling as you build up the clay till you have what you are looking for. With wood you are doing the opposite and removing until you have what you are looking for. If you take too much most times you are screwed and you can change the sculpture into something else like a matchstick or say firewood as a last result. And maybe that is what is good about wood sculpting is that you never have a mistake just firewood. 

 

the log in its original form laying on ground closet to carving table . another reason it was selected was because i didnt want to trip over anything , and soner or later i would have to deal with it. you can see the knot giving me trouble. plus a lot dead i had to trim off back side to get to solid wood. 

 

     Still you would think for the effort you put into a sculpture, and be surprised when you find the hidden Pandora box of troubles. These may include worm holes , knots that are hollow , rotten spots that are punky (soft, yielding) , and of course the slip of the chainsaw, or the eye of the beholder. What I am writing about today is how to deal with those troubles for the most part. This is a result of me picking up a piece of wood and carving on it and finding such a place. I will attempt to glue in a piece and re-carve it today. You can take it off, but you can’t put it on again, is true in a sense but then again to most carvers, not always true. We would like to think we will never have a problem and that all carvings will be the subject of pure expertise with no cheating. Still nature isn’t perfect and chainsaw carvers know that better than most. 

 

after the first tank of gas i could see the knot was going to be aproblem as i went deeper. it was punky as we call it. with a ring of dead material circling it . you can see it on the bear's right arm.

 

      A knot hole on the side of the wild cherry log I selected should have given me pause to stop at that point and just cut it up for firewood. But there are times I have started into logs similar to this and have found the defect to be only a surface blemish. This wasn’t the case with this log and after considerable carving has the knot gouged out and considering the damage, it will call for drastic measures to make it right for sale. 

 

  

a small spot also appeared below the left arm but will be of no consequence. this is after the third tank of gas or approximately 1 hrs. of carving. 

    So today I am going to show you exactly where the damage is, and will show you pictures of the bear in general. I had planned on finishing this bear today and starting a new one . But will see how things go after today. Anyhow I will post pics of the repair work and finishing of the bear over the next couple days. So if interested in how to repair almost any wood sculpture or furniture then please check back, this process will be drastic, but will result in a repair that is almost identical to the rest of the carving. 

 

 this is after the 2nd tank of gas and is out of sequence as i avoided taking pics of damage in last picture taking session . you can see the holes and what appears to be a rotten limb that left the knothole and the damage you see . the limb broke off and the tree tried to repair itself.  i will do a stair step 1-2 inch cut almost flush with the body and then reinsert a piece and glue it back in and then re-carve to my original lines. the repair will be almost seamless s most of it will be in the fur area and will blend right in. 

     The process will require me to take a section of bad wood out where I will be doing the repair with a chainsaw , being careful to cut it deep enough to allow enough replacement wood cut off  from the original carving to be glued back in place and then re- trimmed to the original lines . This will make an almost seamless repair that will be hard to tell with the naked eye. Tomorrow I will have pictures of the process as I am in a real time mode of writing in my blog. What I work on today will be posted tomorrow. I will have this carving available for sale after finishing it and sealing it. If interested please call 2345213984 for information on how e can make arrangements to allow you to purchase. The price will be 100 dollars. I am not taking any orders at this time presently.  Thanks for viewing.

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