Elton's Shining Star

Finally, after a few months of dealing with a health issue (Old age is setting in!) I managed to return to the carving bench. This piece goes to a wonderful fellow Cast Member who happens to love Jiminy Cricket and his college basketball superstar daughter. Elton caught sight of a previous carving of Jiminy and he couldn't resist trying to get me to carve one for him. I try to keep all my carvings a surprise so I put him off telling him I really can't get into requests. A few weeks later I began to research more info about Elton's interests and I found out that Elton is his daughter's biggest "cheerleader." The ideas began to pop up. I'd incorporate Jiminy Cricket and a few select articles to represent Da' Ja and her basketball team.

 

As you can see above, Jiminy will have Da' Ja's team shirt over his coat. Her name on the back and team number on the front. The Basketball will include her year of graduation the "W" for the school and her team number.

The roughout stage.

 

 

 

Smoothing out and detailing.

 

 

Now for the "basketball court!"

 

 

"Elton's Shining Star"

 

Playing "catch-up"

Hi Everyone! It's been a while since I last posted. Problem is, the more I put posting off, the lazier I became! This is a recap of the carvings so I won't belabor the "work-up" stories for each of the carvings. However, here's how a summer of carving went. Each of the carvings you'll see needed to be kept from the public until each person received their carving. The issue was that all of the four carvings happened to be presented just about at the same time frame!

 

The first of four is "Passing On Tradition" to pay tribute to all of the Disney Tour Guides. It was finished in plenty of time but the presentation took a great deal of timing to get all the Guides, Coordinators and Leaders together at one time.
One day I passed by one of my Manager's office and I simply asked him for an idea for a carving dedicated to the Walt Disney Tour Guides. Without hesitation, Jeff drew up this idea about "hands" and passing on a symbol of the Tour Guides. It would be "Mickey's" hand passing a pin onto a human hand. It was an awesome idea! I loved the idea the minute he said it. We talked about trying to make the piece appropriate for everyone so I settled on a color of the person's hand that could imply it could be any person.

"Passing On Tradition"

(The hands are almost full size. The gold pin is a little larger than the actual pin.)
 

I took the past summer to workup the piece for the NCVA Command Display Center in Pensacola. It is the first carving to be raffled off for the benefit of the Display Center. In the middle of that project I was asked to consider making several "trophies" for the Tour Guides and Leaders who took part in the "Walking Challenge" at Team Disney. No problem! Except those three little Mickey's took more time than I thought. It was a busy summer but it all came together just fine.

 

This carving consists of three pieces. It's two first place Mickey Mouse figures and one second place Mickey Mouse.

(About the "Walking Challenge," All the Tour Guides and their Coordinators simply tallied all their steps on their phones while working. The idea was to see if (as a group) they could walk great distances. Well, it started out "walking" to all of the Disney parks World wide! It ended up walking to the moon and beyond! The Winner was just shy of one million steps.)

 

Mickey Mouse Trophies

(The toughest part of carving these figures was trying to make them similar. )

 

 

In between these three carvings, I offered to carve a plaque for one of our retiring Cast Members.

 

 

The last and final piece of this summer is the carving for the Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association Cryptologic Command Display. (A repository of memorabilia of the Cryptologic Group.)

This piece was raffled off to benefit the museum.

 

"I Told You It Was Broke"

The piece was raffled off on November 14, 2019.

A wonderful retired CT and President of the Smokey Mountain Chapter of NCVA, (Joe B.) won the piece. He and his wife took ownership and announced they will keep the piece at home for one year and will donate it to the Cryptologic Command Display at their annual dinner next year.

I was deeply touched by his offer to give the piece a long term home where it will be enjoyed by many for years to come.

I had planned a different carving to be donated at the annual Gulf Coast Chapter of the NCVA this past November. Instead I decided to offer it to the man who's been behind me on all of the Navy carvings and presentations. This past year Bob was informed he had a serious health issue and fortunately surgery was successful. With a short "downtime" Force Mast Chief Bob Anderson was back at the helm of the CCD.
I was honored to present the carving "The R Brancher… That's Better" to Bob at a reunion and dinner of the Gulf Coast and Smokey Mountain Groups of the NCVA.

"The R Brancher… That's Better"

 

 

 

 

At Home In The Horse Barn

This piece started out to be so simple. Our niece is getting married and she and her husband to be are horse lovers. They planned a casual western themed wedding with Cowboy/girl hats and boots. Dawn has been a horse lover for most of her life. The same goes for her hubby to be and North Carolina will fill in for the perfect location to settle. This carving began as just two characters dressed as Dawn and Eddy on a base... Then, I remembered Dawn always wanted a steer skull for her home. The Steer Skull began the evolution of this piece.

 

 The horns were pinned with 1/8" dowels and glued to the skull.

 

 With a great deal of help from Dawn's Mom, Angela, the saddle entered the scene. Two good photos of Dawn on her horse allowed me to get the saddle reasonably close to her actual saddle.

 

 The two photos below are the Tie Strap holders.



The wooden saddle horse.

I tossed around several poses for the couple. They ended up close together, Dawn with her two hands holding Eddie's left hand. Eddies right hand was to be simply between the two... but just didn't look right!

 

 This is the first piece I've carved that the two figures will be carved as one piece. That led to some real frustration and a need to change an arm position as the piece progressed.

The front of my sketch lines were trimmed so I could trace the outline of the figures onto paper to use as a sort of template as the figures were cut into. I pencil rubbed the figures onto the paper then cut the two apart. By reversing the cutouts, I could mark the back of the wood blank to outline the figures as well.

 

 

The front view was working up as hoped. But Eddie's right arm looked very much out of place.

 

 

With much deliberation, Eddie's right arm needed to be removed at the elbow and his "new" forearm  and hand is to be placed below Dawn's hair around her lower back.

 

Below, Eddie's lower arm is removed and the "new" forearm" is on the screen at the bottom of the photo. After a great deal of fitting, the piece is glued in place.

 

 

Success!

 

The couple was finished with a fine burr.

 

 

The base the couple is standing on was used to "fit" their shoes flat on the floor of the actual base.

 

The Tack Boxes!

 

 Handles and hinges for the Tack Boxes.

The two small pieces to the right of the photo below include two spacers for the Tack Boxes to keep them off the wall of the barn to allow the lid to be opened. (No the boxes do not open.) The small piece lower far right is holding the four metal rings for the saddle straps. (The rings are tiny round screw hooks. They needed to be bent at the threads to make the rings stand off the saddle.)

 

With all the pieces ready for color, they were fitted to what grew into a three wall diorama.

 

 

 At last, all the pieces were finished and all the mounting holes and dowels were made ready.

The "paint room" is setup and ready to go.

As the piece was coming together, someone suggested adding windows to the barn!

What a great addition to the piece. Photos were printed and the windows are routered and trimmed.

Saddle straps.

 

"At Home In The Horse Barn"