Someone's gotten into the trash...

This little raccoon is hand carved hand painted and furred.  I'm not really a fan of the raccoon....he's a chicken killer and I have witnessed the devastation first hand at the farm......But it was a fun project and cute little guy, so I put my feelings aside.

I will be listing him on Ebay Sunday evening:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/merchant/artist_697_miraclechicken

I made the dumpster from metal and aged and rusted it like the one at the bar I used to work at. 

The wheels and casters turn and rotate.

Squirrels

I am going to make a series of squirrels. The two called Gray Squirrels, the brown (pictured above) and a gray one. I also want to make a red squirrel with those adorable ear tufts.

Hand carved, hand painted then furred.  On Ebay 'til the 30th.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/merchant/artist_697_miraclechicken

Make your outdoor scene come alive!

Who ordered winter???

Well I don't blame this little chipmunk for ditching indoors, it's COLD out there! 

Snowy too.... Who ordered winter? Not me....way too early for this....

This little guy is on ebay until Sunday Nov. 23rd. He is carved to the finest detail, then his fur is applied.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/merchant/artist_697_miraclechicken

Buddies

These two are good friends :) 

The Basset hound is an anatomically correct male And the blond cat is definitely a pretty little girl.

They are hand carved, hand painted then their fur coats are applied. 

The cat is on ebay 

http://www.ebay.com/sch/merchant/artist_697_miraclechicken 

until Sunday the 16th of November.

Red Fox

A Red Fox- hand carved, hand painted then fur is painstakingly applied. This is an understatement :) He has a thick lush coat. Features toes with nails, paw pads and life like eyes. 

 He is for sale on Ebay until this Sunday Nov. 2nd.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/merchant/artist_697_miraclechicken

My vacation

That's right, it's Kilmouski! A more gorgeous sweet cat I've never met :) 

He is also incredibly smart and so much fun!

I'll start off by saying I haven't been away anywhere since 1978. A trip was long overdue, and I can't think of a better vacation than going to visit dear friend and fellow blogger Catherine. 

http://kilmouskiandme.blogspot.com  Wow it was almost a 12 hour drive! But I was just fine because I took a box full of my favorite music and just jammed the whole way! It was actually fun, grueling but fun.

The trip to Repair Days at the National Ornamental Metals Museum was very interesting. 

We got to watch molten iron poured into molds. Here is a picture:

Not a bad pic for a crummy little cell phone. I had forgotten my good camera that day, oh well...

Catherine seems to have picked up a hitch-hiker haha!

The neighborhood where she lives is situated around a beautiful private lake. I took these pictures:

Same shot zoomed in:

It was a very nice trip. Thank you to Catherine and Kilmouski for the wonderful hospitality :)

And then another 12 hours back home...

I made this Gray Longhair cat. He is hand carved, hand painted, then the fur is applied. He is very life like, I had fun with it. It is on ebay till this Sunday night (Oct. 5th)

http://www.ebay.com/sch/merchant/artist_697_miraclechicken

A recent commission

Someone is making an Insane Asylum circa 1920. They commissioned me to make these items. The skull is hand carved wood (jelutong) with brass mountings and a turned cherry base. 

The apothecary case is made of cherry. I turned all knobs and made the handle. 

I had a lot of fun making all the jars. They are turned from acrylic with removable lids and stoppers. I also made a couple tiny corks and turned wood stoppers. The mortar and pestle are turned cherry.

This is the sign I made. Following are the pictures of her idea and what she gave me to work from. This is my interpretation of it all:

This is what she gave me to work from.  

My Mom at the zoo

My mom got to the Columbus (Ohio) zoo yesterday! She is 91 years old. She loves giraffes. Here she is feeding one. How fun! 

wonderful work helpers

I know nobody wants to hear about tools, but since making tools and jigs is a passion of mine, I'm going to go ahead with this post. Humor me! I recently acquired an entire set of Popular Mechanics do-it-yourself encyclopedias (plus 3 yearbooks) all for $5.00! I was giddy, and reading them is a lot of fun. Mixed in with all the alphabetized topics of DIY stuff are pages of tips, tricks and jigs. The two I am addressing here were under B -bandsaw and D -drill press, they had their own sections as do most all tools. There I found these awesome accessories. 

This helpful jig I just had to try is a drill press hold-down. It is just what I needed, as getting clamps on drill press tables is many times an exercise in futility.....Here are the plans.

I knew it was too big for my little drill press. But do a whole bunch of math to reduce it? Heck no! In the '70's when these books were written, you could not just go upstairs to your computer, scan/copy/paste the section you need and tell your printer to print it at 5 inches! HA instant reduced patterns.

The hold down works well and when not in use, it just swings out of the way. 

The second handy helper is a cam action band saw fence . Here you can see the spring, the handle is shaped to apply the pressure. It does not adjust for blade drift, but it holds good!

Tomorrow I will do a miniatures post :)

The lamp kick continues!

I am having so much fun making lamps! These are the new ones, 1:12 scale.

The first two I put a patina. I turned the brass on all three, and turned the shade on the first one from acrylic. The second shade was found in my stash, I had to carefully drill a hole in it. I painted the floral shade. And the base on it is hand carved cherry.

These two I made everything but the chimneys. Again, turned brass and acrylic, hand carved cherry base on the right. And they all are electrified.