One of a Kind Wood Carvings: "The American Idol Experience, Lego Mickey and a Broadway Song"

The title sure is a "mouthful!" But, it works. Thanks to the ideas from a friend of the recipient, there is no other way to cover the uniqueness of the piece than to carve what Jeff likes. Jeff, the recipient, loves Broadway musicals, Legos and worked as the manager for "The American Idol Experience" in Hollywood Studios, Disney World. While focusing in on what to carve it made sense to incorporate all three of Jeff's passions.

Here's how it all started... with a 4"X4"X12" block of basswood. Because of the "layers" of this piece it was necessary to draw all sides of the piece. Normally, I can get away with a front view followed by "guide marks" on the rest of the sides. Below is the left corner of the front and left sides.

Front view

Left side

With all the sides marked the reduction begins. Mickey will be carved to appear to be made of Legos. That provided a little comfort knowing I could be a bit "rougher" on Mickey.

The reduction of the sides to make the Marquee was more than a little frustrating. Basswood doesn't carve well with burrs. It "fuzzes" terribly.

Below, you can see just how badly the grain is "roughed " by the burrs.

Working the "layers" of this piece was quite different from what I'm used to carving. It was also quite tricky to keep track of the three "layers" of the Marquee as it is reduced to size. To complicate things even more the left and right sides needed to be the same.

This is a mere sampling of the "fluff" that covered my carving bench.

Here you can see just how much "flattening" and smoothing is ahead of me.

Now to add the lettering!

Trying to make each piece out of a single piece of wood becomes more than a little challenging.

This view is the right side. I carved the words "EXPERIENCE" on the left side with little problems. However, the right side was a different story. I ended up removing the entire word and adding a flat piece of wood to re-do the word on the right side.

Below, wood is added to redo the vertical word. The new piece is on the right side (bottom of photo). the left side is protected with a tongue depressor.

(I know, I've got to purchase a couple of light weight wood clamps!)

At last! The effort was worth it. Now for details.

Mickey worked up quickly and was fitted into place. When gluing one piece onto another piece I prefer to leave wood on the bottom of the piece that can be traced and routed out. That gives me surface area for glue and/or a screw.