Who broke that cross?

[mathman]

That would be my brother. ;) He was attempting to fix the staff on a small processional cross and in the process broke the cast pot metal cross on top. When he saw I had the CarveWright machine (just got it a week and a half ago) he asked about making one. Spent a couple of days playing with it and learning the software and ended up with what I think is a workable solution using poplar.

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The first image is of the original, broken cross laid on top of the carving - not too bad for a match. The last two pictures are just different angles of the not quite finished cross - my brother is planning on painting it and I'm going to leave that 'fun' to him. It is a 2-sided carving but both the front and back are identical. For a first designing and carving attempt I'm pleased with the result. Off to find an excuse for another carving... :)

David

[Kenm810]

Way to Go David, Nice Job, Great that you were able to come through for your Brother!

[henry1]

Way to Go David, Nice Job, Great that you were able to come through for your Brother!
Have to agree with Ken nice job

[Capt Bruce]

Good save Mathman,

And by the way a hearty welcome to the CarveWright Forum. I think your Brother certainly appreciates you pulling his bacon out of the fire as your first carve.
May be the wrong religion but I think you've earned some good Karma with your first project. Maybe a set of stations of the cross next. Again welcome aboard and we'll look forward to your creations.

[mathman]

Thanks for the kind words and the welcomes! It was a fun first project - the cylinder under the cross was something I did just to see if it would work out, especially since I didn't see a good way of attaching the cross to the existing metal ferrule. Carved out three rings and a top cap and glued them together:

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Discovered that's not the best clamp for that purpose - the jaws aren't parallel by design to even out the clamping pressure the more that is applied, evening out the jaws in the process. For this application, the non-parallelness (if that's a word) wanted to shift the rings so they didn't line up quite as well as they should have. Just took a little extra sanding after glue-up.


Maybe a set of stations of the cross next.

I'll leave the stations to my older brother (different brother from the one that broke that cross):

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He's pretty handy with a chisel - he won a national award for the set of stations of which the third one is a member. :)

David

[lawrence]

those (the cross and your brother's hand carvings) are GORGEOUS! Welcome to the forum and I look forward to your future additions.

Lawrence

[Capt Bruce]

A second to Lawrence's compliments David. As a lifelong hand carver too, I'd say your brother wields some mean chisels. Very striking compositions.

I would normally go with a wooden parallel jaw clamp for a stacked set like that. We've all run into that problem because wood glue makes a great lubricant. Again welcome David.