In memory of our silver maple

[CarverJerry]

I finally figured out how to carve a piece of wood from my silver maple tree that I cut down. This is right off the machine, no finish or sanding yet. I plan on putting this on the end of the fence where the tree used to stand. In memory of our tree. The wife really liked it and wants another one for the house.
It took a little work to make the machine get out of the loop of wanting the 1/16" carving bit, so I searched our forum and followed what someone (sorry, just forgot who it was)had said and it WORKED......thanks,

CarverJerry

[spalted]

Cool beans!

The maple end grain looks like it carved well. I did some yellow birch and ash end grain carves. The ash got a little fuzzy.

[fwharris]

Jerry,

Great way to honor your tree!! Carve looks great!!

[myshop1044]

I'm looking to try some carving on slices of log.
I have a few questions for you.
Would you be willing to show your sled set up for the log.
I want to set a region over the entire surface for the log so the carving would stand out.
Does it matter which way the grain runs in a green log?
Would the sled have to be big enought to cover the region and the log with out hurting the sled,
and how would this be done. I have my ideas, but if any body has done this before less me know,
If anybody has any info on this proccess, drop me a e-mail.
Thanks again

Myshop1044

[Icutone2]

Great job! I have wanted to do that. I will try it soon thanks for showing it.
Lee

[spalted]

I'm looking to try some carving on slices of log.
I have a few questions for you.
Would you be willing to show your sled set up for the log.
I want to set a region over the entire surface for the log so the carving would stand out.
Does it matter which way the grain runs in a green log?
Would the sled have to be big enought to cover the region and the log with out hurting the sled,
and how would this be done. I have my ideas, but if any body has done this before less me know,
If anybody has any info on this proccess, drop me a e-mail.
Thanks again

Myshop1044

I have done it but I don't have any photos, so I will do my best to explain it.

I made a sled with sides as high as my slab is thick 1" .Then I filled the ends of the sled with a 1" boards. I covered the gap between the filler boards and the natural edge slabs with 2" masking tape, so the machines board sensor does not see the slab, it only sees the sled as a solid board.

I carefully centered my slab on the sled and choose to center my pattern on the board. I did manually jog my machine to position to check for height because it would have missed the slab had I used the default touch down position.

I will take photos next time, but for now I hope this makes a little bit of sense.

[lawrence]

Well executed piece and thank you for the explanation of your sled

Lawrence

[CarverJerry]

Well to be honest with ya I used my sled that I made for my scanning probe. It has 2" high rails and is full width of the machine. The only mods I did to the sled was I put 4" pieces on each end of the sled for the 7"+ rule. That was LG's suggestion and it worked. I was using lots of masking tape before but after I added the (as LG said "wings") pieces to each end it went well. I have center lines on the sled and the same on the slab of wood. I then used tapered shims (used for installing windows/doors) to get my slab level with the top rails, and as we all know a chain sawed slab isn't perfect, at least I'm not that good with one. I then used hot glue to hold the part down to the sled, also the shims were glued down. Remember to treat your slabs prior to carving, if you do a search on google "stablizing wood with dishwashing liquid" there are a lot of articles on this. Hope this helps ya out. I have done 6 slabs with no problems at all.

CJ

[spalted]

I used the LG wings too,( not to be confused with the items you wish your wife wouldn't put on your grocery list) but for some reason I had trouble so I went the tape route.

For anyone who needs a bunch of bias cut slabs; I have mine sawn on a band mill and kiln dried, then I run them through a surface planner to flatten them back out again. and belt sand them.