Carved bird perfume atomizer

[autobodyman]

Started these for an Xmass present for my mother cause she really liked the one I made for the birdhouse I made this summer. I installed perfume atomizers in them so they would serve some purpose. I was planning to make a branch base for the two birds, my wife saw what I was making and informed me that my mother only needed one, she wanted the other. So I needed to make two bases. Decided that since they were only going to have one bird I would make the base to hold a plate, I've been wanting to turn a plate in the new lathe I got this summer anyway.
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I used one of the wife's plates to get the dished area for the "branch" to hold a plate that I hadn't turned yet. I turned two 14" diameter maple plates. Being they were such plain wood I decided I should carve something into the plates. I was thinking a mountain scene, I had some photos of the Tetons from a recent trip but after looking at the photos I decided there were to many trees and I didn't want to carve that much so I found a pattern for a birdhouse and modified it a little bit and printed it out on some laser transparencies with my inkjet printer (ink won't dry on laser ) and rubbed the pattern onto the plates, I still lack carving them and this is now going to be a birthday present since I didn't get this done in time for Xmass. (Now I have till April)
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I used a texturing tool on the second plate, like I said I still lack carving the plates (I left the bottom of the plates ½" thick to allow for the carving) and I still need to paint the birds as well.

I haven't started carving the plates yet, got side tracked on another project which I'll elaborate on in another post.

I do hope it's alright to be posting these projects since I didn't use the carvewright for them?

What do you think so far?
Thanks ~Mike

[Kenm810]

Mike, Always happy to see your craftsmanship, your skill inspires ideas in us, that we can and do use in our carving projests
Great Job, your work with or without the machine is most Welcome here. Thanks for sharing your Photos

[SharonB]

Exceptional work on the birds. Hope you'll post the plates when your finished.

[Gary Koval]

D$$N you, those are gorgeous, if I had just a tenth of your talent.
Gary

[autobodyman]

Thanks guys.

I still have a bunch of sanding to do, this carving took me a lot longer than I thought it would. Took me most of a day just to carve around the perimeter of the birdhouse and re-carve the dish to that perimeter. Couldn't really use a router to lower it since it needed to be curved down.
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I was planning to scan this into my Carvewright machine but I didn't think ahead on that very well, the plate is 14" and I don't know how I'm going to jig it up to scan it, any thoughts?

I was hoping to have the machine rough a second one out for me as I need another one of these for my wife. If I can't get the machine to do it I'll be doing it by hand again.

Thanks ~Mike

[Smoken D]

Fantastic Job Mike. And excellent close up photos!

[signman9999]

Mike,
An excellent job!!!!!! Congrats on the home run.
Tom

[autobodyman]

Thanks Guys.

I built a jig to hold the plate I carved. 14" wide piece of ¾" plywood with sides made from 3/8" plywood just fit in the machine. Luckily the hand carved plate I made came out 13¾" so it just fit and left barely enough room for the probe.
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After downloading the scan into the software it said it was to deep at .9123" so I cleaned up the scan a bit and reset the depth to ¾"
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After the machine got it carved out I cut it out and attached it to my lathe's face plate to turn the back of the plate and clean up the lines on the front as well as running my texturing tool over the textured rings on the front (I knew it was going to be to fine for the machine to duplicate).
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Because of the ¾" depth limit I wound up re-carving around the birdhouse a little deeper by hand (probably wouldn't have been necessary but I thought it would look a little better), I have about 3 hours of hand carving and sanding in it at this point, probably another hour or so of sanding I need to do yet. All in all though I think this probably saved me around 5 to 6 hours over having done this all by hand.

Probably if I was better(more practiced) with the Carvewright I could have re-done the pattern to just be to the center ring and had it re-carve this lower but I didn't think of that till I had the plate cut out.

Anyway what do you think of it?

Thanks ~Mike

[chebytrk]

looks great! Turned out really nice.

[b.sumner47]

Wow, Mike !!!


Capt Barry

[SharonB]

Mike... that is one very nice project. I've enjoyed seeing your progress. Sure hope you post pictures when it is finished.

[autobodyman]

Thanks Jerry, Barry and Sharon for the nice comments.

I finally finished this project last night.
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This one is for my wife, she (like myself) isn't really into painted wood so much so I just glazed the bird a bit before clearcoating it because I carved it from basswood and it didn't have much grain to it.

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This one is for my mother. She really seemed to like the bird I made last summer for the birdhouse I built which was painted. I used automotive basecoat colors with my airbrush and sprayed several coats of clearcoat with a flattening agent on it.

I've probably got somewhere around 50 to 60 hours or so into this project. What do you think of them?

Thanks ~Mike

[chebytrk]

Fantastico ! Always in awe of the stuff you create...

[SharonB]

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. On the plate for your wife I like the different colored berries....is this color or different woods. I like color so of course I like your painted bird. You sure know how to please women with such beautiful gifts.

[bowfingers]

Wow Great plate!
Are you going to offer the pattern in the Pattern Depot?

[Capt Bruce]

That is really a spectacular design you've created Mike. One more vote for making it available through the Pattern Depot because you've created one that will sell.

[chebytrk]

Yup... I would buy it too

[autobodyman]

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. On the plate for your wife I like the different colored berries....is this color or different woods. I like color so of course I like your painted bird. You sure know how to please women with such beautiful gifts.
Thanks Sharon,
The different colored "berries" are ¼" dowels of walnut and maple (the plate is maple too but the grain runs the opposite direction in the dowels). I did this because the plate I carved by hand was already dished after I turned the plate in the lathe and I didn't think some of the "berries" were tall enough.

Thanks ~Mike

[autobodyman]

Thanks Jerry, Denny and Bruce.
There are a couple issues with selling this plate pattern, one of them is the texture (in the rings) I created on the lathe is to fine for the Carvewright to reproduce cleanly. The other problem is, though I modified the picture/pattern somewhat, it is based on a drawing I bought from Carvingpatterns.com (Lora Irish/Fox Chapel Publishing) so I don't think I can sell it without getting her permission/consent and I really don't know how to go about that.

I do appreciate the interest and apologize for not be able to provide the pattern.

Thank you. ~Mike