Today I taught a workshop on power carving. We looked at different cutting blades for angle grinders and discussed pros/cons, set-up, applications, safety and technique before plugging in the tools to start experimenting with them. We first practiced on a chunk of cherry before going to work on two serious chunks of wood – elm and red cedar. Oh, I love the smell of cedar! The focus of the class was to get comfortable with the tools shaping the edges. Joinery for the base/legs was beyond the scope of this 5-hour class, and it will be really interesting to see what they come up with. The possibilities are endless.
Part of the fun of working with unsurfaced (rough-cut) materials is exposing what is underneath. We couldn’t really tell what kind of figure we could expect or what colour variations that would be revealed. We could see the heartwood/sapwood line, but not this!
Little details like this can really enhance the experience of the completed piece. It just feels so… Well, it just adds another layer of depth.
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