Listen to Lynn...Or lesson Learned

[SlowMover]

I just put away my carving for the day, after a frustrating event. I am carving the horse from Lynn's excellent tutorial, and had an accident. Lynn pointed to a spot on the cocked back leg and said" This is the weakest point on these legs, if it breaks it will break RIGHT here". Guess what, he was right as usual, that is exactally where my leg broke off. I don't have as good a grasp of the dynamics of wood grain as he does, but even I know how and why my amputtion occured.

I offer this tip to anyone carving the horse using Lynn's method. I was very careful to support the cocked leg and to be gentle with it while carving that leg. The problem was I shut off my brain when carving the front leg on that side...I squeezed the back leg with my fist as I got a good grip on the block while carving the foreleg, and SNAP..that was enough force to send it into my lap.

LESSON LEARNED: the weak spots in your carving due to grain direction are ALWAYS weak, not just when you are working on that particular portion of the carving...remember where they are at all times and avoid pressure on a weak spot when holding your piece secure.

I promise myself I will never squeeze the legs of a horse together again....hope I can remember now that I have prepared another half of my blank to start on anew in the morning.

Happy, safe, and SMART carving to all of you.

[hold still]

Somethings we just have to learn from first hand experience and most likely it will take more than once before it's made a dent in my hard head.
I like your idea of carving the horse head before the body....good luck with this project.

Richard

[rgham]

I've had those accidents. Glue has saved me many times.

[Bob Tamillo]

Hey SM you're not alone. I too did the squeeze thing and snapped (actually cracked) the leg but it was a fixable break that as rgjham said, glue to the rescue. I could have started anew but had too much time in this one and ya know what....it turned out pretty good. And once mounted on a base that weak leg will hold just fine. I will however, on future Lynn horse carvings remember to be more gentle.

[oldmountainman]

Don't you recon Lynn knows exactly where it is the weakest because he has experienced the same thing at one time or another?? Glue does work wonders sometimes especially if you're gonna paint anyhow. I've started one also but haven't touched the "weak" leg yet..time will tell. Focus, focus,focus