[Treever]

I'm a newcomer to the site, been carving for four years off and on. Started with gunner decoys in black cork and pine heads...started relief carving a few months ago and my interest has expanded exponentially.

Now I'm in the planning stages of making a carousel/rocking horse for my daughter. She just turned one, so I'll probably have it ready by the time she's married!

My question is does anyone have any useful tips for the planning/creating of such a thing. It will be a rocking horse, but a 3D carved-carousel type of body, not a rocking profile of a horse. Any suggested materials? Been thinking of basswood, and intend to paint it. My imagination knows no bounds, so-not to be rude-but I'm not looking for decorative/design ideas, but more of structural design tips.

Your thoughts are appreciated.

[AlArchie]

I searched on Fox Chappel'sa book site and didn't find anything there on full sized carousel animals, soooooo, I'll put this title up.

Carousel Animal Carving by Bud Ellis and Rhonda Hoeckley. It has a whole bunch of patterns, instructions for the glue-up process for body, head and leg parts, assembly, carving and painting. It also has a section on resources for supplies and acrutements.

Al

[AlArchie]

Treever, here's two pictures of "carousel style" carvings I have done.

The rabbit is a glue up of two 12"x6"x48" white pine beams. That gave me a 12"x 12"x48" solid block to work with. Both top and side profiles were bandsawed out at the local highschool shop...only place that had a large enough bandsaw. The rest was all chisle and gouge carved.

The frog was a similar glue up to start with and it was roughed out with a chainsaw and a Lancelot on an angle grinder. The high kick leg was another added glue up, as was that high foot. Both were fitted, dowelled, glued and clamped. This was also a white pine beam to start with.

If I were to do the frog again, I'd use 5/4 basswood boards, bandsawed to profile before assembly, as the frog was a painted item anyway. The rabbit I wanted a natural finish on so needed a nice single piece of pine. The glue joint is right down the vertical center line and is nearly invisible.

I do have a series of photos showing the develpment of the blank if you'd like, but it's a pretty messy process.

The frog was made for display only but could have been mounted on rockers just as easily. the rabbit is obviously set up as a rocking toy and will go to our grandaughter later this summer. both were carved about 10 years back so they are not new carvings.

Al

[Treever]

Al-thanks for the book title. I'll check with the library to see if I can get it there...I guess I was in a hurry to post my question and didn't even think to check the publisher's library here! Duh.

Nice animals-that's what I'm shooting for with my daughter's horse. I started Prototype 1A from construction pine 2x12's, but the moisture was too high. Had them all glued up, but as soon as I started chiseling the whole block warped, twisted, cupped, bowed-you name it...essentially it slowly exploded over a matter of days. Burned for a whole day in the firepit, too.

Thanks!

[mark yundt]

The excessive moisture in wood found at the box stores,,as well as "seasoned" wood really shows its faults when glued up. As an individual carving you might get away with it,,but not as a block,,with moisture running at 12-15%..I think you'll have to find kiln dried wood in the 7 percent range to have any type of control over its movement.Kiln dried being the key word,,if the kiln operator knows what they're doing ,it really limits what the wood does from then on.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

From another site, there is a man named Cliff working on a carousel restore in Oregon, sorry I can't give you more info , but I bet a google search of carousels, carousel horses, restores etc might bring up something.

[brian bailey]

Originally Posted by mark yundt

The excessive moisture in wood found at the box stores,,as well as "seasoned" wood really shows its faults when glued up. As an individual carving you might get away with it,,but not as a block,,with moisture running at 12-15%..I think you'll have to find kiln dried wood in the 7 percent range to have any type of control over its movement.Kiln dried being the key word,,if the kiln operator knows what they're doing ,it really limits what the wood does from then on.

The only thing that a kiln operator does is control the drying rate so the lumber does not develop drying defects. At the end of the drying cycle, the kiln operator equalizes the load so all the pieces have a moisture content that falls within 2% more or less of each other. When drying hardwoods, samples are taken to determine if there is any tension set (casehardening) and if so, a conditioning cycle is begun to relieve this stress.

After the wood leaves the kiln it will readily reabsorb moisture until it reaches its equilibrium moisture content of the surrounding air in which its stored in.

If the lumber was dried in a kiln to 7% and then stored outdoors, it would eventually reach a moisture content of 12 to 18% in most areas of the US. The desert areas of the US would be an exception to this.

Just because wood has been kiln dried does not necessarily mean it will always be dry.

[mark yundt]

You're right,,it is basically a sponge,,but it does in my experience tend to be more stable if the wood was prepared for furniture grade vs. construction grade. I've had much more positive results with this type of wood as opposed to what is commonly available.Even the trees I'm doing now ,compared to the pieces I did before using seasoned wood,,there is noticeably much less movement in the pieces that were prepped in a kiln to an initial lower percent.Wood never stops moving,,it just seems like it's more stable with the proper prep.

[brian bailey]

Mark,

A piece of wood that is at say 8% mc doesn't care whether it was dried in a kiln or a room with just low humidity.

Just because a piece of wood was dried in a kiln doesn't mean it's more stable than an air dried one if they're both at the same mc. They'll both change dimensionally as the moisture in the air changes.


The point that I'm trying to make is, when selecting wood for a project, you should be more concerned with the wood's moisture content and make sure that all the pieces are the same %. Not whether it has been kiln dried or not.

Another thing to consider is that when you're gluing up wide pieces such as for a carousel horse, that you pay attention to the grain orientation. You don't want to glue flatsawn to quartersawn. Flatsawn wood shrinks more across the grain. Quartersawn pieces shrink more across the thickness. Gluing the two together will almost garantee a glue failure.

Here's a link to Woodweb's shrinkage calculator.

http://www.woodweb.com/cgi-bin/calcu...ator=shrinkage

Select your species from the dropdown box, I used basswood. I used 12" width, then put in 6% mc for a starting value and 12% mc for ending value. These values were used because that's what your lumber will most likely change to over a season.

On a flatsawn piece the wood will move a 1/4", radialsawn (quartersawn) will move 5/32". Quite a bit of movement for a glue joint to withstand!

[mark yundt]

Brian,,you are absolutely correct.Wood will find it's equilibrium regardless how it's dried.Grain orientation also plays a role in how something is glued up.Unforutnately many of us don't have the leisure to have stacks of wood sitting around for years waiting to do a glue up.In my experience not a single piece I've ever bought from a "box" store ever remained straight,,they were when I bought them,,leave them sit for a week or so and they are now barrel staves.Rip them on the saw and they turn into pretzels,warp,bind the blades etc. A piece I did for a church recently,,using select grade from a box store,,allowed to sit in my shop for several weeks before use and glue up,,has now developed cracks that I now have to go back and fix.The piece I'm doing now,,a glue up using just over 300 board feet is staying stable,,compared to the one I did a few yrs ago using air dried wood,,you could see it move day to day.It may just be me,,but I do seem to have much better luck,,and control over wood that started out dry,,and let it acclimate.I personally think,,once the wood is "dried",,banded,,shipped to the local store,,cut the bands,,notice the moisture between the layers of stacked 2 X 4-6-8 10's,,take them home,,let 'em dry a bit more,,can be a risky move,,rip them and you'll really see them move! Yes,,they will eventually stabilize around 15 % or so,,but in my experience,,starting out reasonably dry,,and then letting them adjust,seems in my experience to cause much fewer problems.Many of my jobs require fairly massive glue ups,,(including 2 carousel horses , as well as a variety of full size statues) I personally would not use the type of wood the question was addressing,,I think it's an invitation to disaster as his results,,as well as mine confirm.Yes,,not arguing the fact that all wood will reach an equilibrium,,that's a given.I just think that the common sources seem to me to start out much too wet for immediate use to be glued up and expect them to stay relatively stable.On their own as I said they'll twist,cup warp all over the place,,glue 'em up and they'll bust themselves apart regardless how you orient the grain.This wetter wood was also part of the reason sheetrock screws were used to prevent popping nails as the wood dried..I personally think it's still too wet to be restricted in a glue up..That is the only reason I suggested a drier wood to start with.