Carvings we wish we could do

[dhellew2]

Something most of us can only dream about... James, this rivals in its own way the carvings in the book you gave me in 2013 [thanks again]

Visited a carving factory [their description and it is not open to the public] in the Thai village outside Bangkok. These hand carved works often take up to 3-years with several people working on them. The larger ones usually have two people working on them the entire time. They are all for sale, most going to upper class restaurants and hotels, some we saw costing as much as $250.000 US

The procedure:
1. paper layout hand drawn glued to slab [nothing else]
2. rough carving
3. layer after layer cutting with about 30 different size hand gouges and chisels
4. hand sanding with tiny bits of regular sand paper
5. finish... some are unfinished, some lacquer, some painted & lacqured



I only wish I could show the 3-d in a 2-d photo.

There is no machinery of any kind uses other than cutting the original log into slabs. This is Teak, about 30' long x average 3.5' height x 7" to 9" thick. Every tree is a fully shaped round tree. The carving is the full depth of the wood with some areas cut all the way through. The entire piece is a full 3d piece of art that could only be done by hand.

This is an actual tree stump carved all the way around the 360 degree stump
See the vine over the elephant on the right... it is not attached to the elephant
everything is carved as if it were alive in real life, elephants, monkeys hanging in the trees, etc. out in the jungle

We had to buy a small one and had it shipped to the US; unfortunately my camera ran out of battery so I don't have a photo.. if it arrives home in one piece I will post a photo.

I just had to share,
Dale

[Daniel S]

WOW!!! What talent and time it takes to carve that. Truly masters at work....
Thanks for showing the pictures.
Dan

[JamesB]

Dale, I'm jealous of you getting to see such nice carvings and visiting Thailand. We have a local Thai restaurant that has a lot of this type of work on the walls and in the table surfaces (with glass over). I like to go there for both the food and to take a look at the carvings. Thanks for sharing the images, particularly the wall of leaves. One thing I did think of is I would not like to have to dust it...

Cheers,
James

[dhellew2]

Thanks Dan

James, no dust here but at home ours will more than make up for it.
The lacquer finish should help prevent dust from sticking
Perhaps a battery operate leaf blower will be enough 'wind' to blow away the dust without damage
Getting here is expensive, but once here the cost is about 10 to 1 US [a typical taxi ride is less than $1 US]

Many of their products are furniture. The tables are designed to have a glass top [not included]

Most of the factory was outside with only a roof to keep out the rain

The temperature does not change much here, right now it is dry... rain starts in July

Trying to show the carving depth

Yes, the center is end grain pieces of branches nailed together

There were several stumps, all 100% carved

This is the left end of the 30' carving

[galerdude]

Amazing!
Thanks for sharing !!!

[scottp55]

And for every hour carving Teak, there was 10 minutes spent resharpening:)
Reminds me to oil a Thai carving I've got, A 24" branch with lizards crawling up it on all 360 degrees.
Not the same details and undercutting as you're showing though
Thanks for posting Dale!
scott

[scottart]

thanks for posting these.. amazing. would love to see the work in progress and the tools, and the people doing this work..

[BArnold]

Thanks for sharing such beautiful work!

[mtylerfl]

Dale, those are really cool. Makes me inspired to go carve something!

[Rcnewcomb]

For those who haven't seen Jerry Mifflin's work: ->Link


Here is a link to a 14 minute video of Scott McNeill's deep relief carvings: ->Link