I wanted to give "Brutus" to the recipient much earlier in the football season. However, better late than never as they say.
"Brutus" is going home to a true football fan. Melony lives and breaths for Ohio State football! I'm sure this carving will have a "place of honor" in her home football arena.
"Brutus" got his start as a 7" X 4" X 3" piece of tupelo wood.
After a few minutes on the band saw, he will be roughed out. The wedge shaped piece to the lower right will be his baseball cap.
I used the cap to "loosen up" after finishing the last carving project.
"Brutus" is ready to be roughed out.
In some carvings, I sometimes cut too much away of one area or another and I end up adding wood someplace. With "Brutus" I cut the arm holes too soon and ended up having to add wood to the armpits.
In the photo below I've added some wood to correct the problem.
Alas, that didn't workout all that well. The left arm was much too small. After some grumbling, I decided to perform a little "surgery." I would remove the left arm at the pencil lines below.
(Warning, graphic photo below.)
Fear not "Brutus" didn't feel any pain!
"We can rebuild him, better and stronger than before."
(Where have I heard that before.)
I gave him plenty of wood!
Fitted with his new arm, I can continue with his progress.
After all his paint is added, his cap will be held in place with a 1/8" dowel and glued.
He will be screwed and glued to the base.
Because his ankles are so thin I opted for one screw in his left foot and a dowel glued for his right foot.
Aha, that works.
Now to bring him to life with a little color.
Printing small letters is something I need some help with. The pictures I use as guides often times has just what is needed. I resize the photo to match the size of the carving. Then, I print out the photo on regular print paper and trim out just what I want and glue it to the piece. Luckily, the color I painted his red strips matches the color of the background of the printed images.
"Brutus" is ready for his new home.
