Wip - stylized Ballerina

[Doug Ridley]

Finished this stylized Ballerina today but had a little bad luck. Broke her left arm. Well I pinned it back on with a 1/8" dowel and some 5 min. epoxy, but the glue line shows plus where I got into the dowel and glue when I finished carving the arm. Now I usually just stain and lacquer these but if I do that it won't cover the repair. Mary's gonna try to paint it using some variation of yellow ochre tomorrow. I'll let you know how it comes out. If it works I'll make a nice Walnut base for it. If it doesn't work I'll probably carve another one. Wish me luck.

[AlArchie]

Well, here's wishing you luck, Doug! Hope it works out OK....hate to see all that work go down the tubes.

Al

[Bartster]

doug,

wish you luck, i hate when this happens also.

bart

[Ashbys]

Doug ,

I am sure it will finish just fine. There is a gentlemen , an extreamly fine carver who made a simple statement in one of his books that I took to heart. It seems to be a perfect statement to me.
Never tell anyone you made a mistake while working on a piece. The man who made that statement was Ian Norbury. After thinking about the statement it made a lot of sense to me. First if it finishes out to be a good carving , telling someone of the mistake would devalue the carving , not because it was repaired , but because they knew it was repaired. You know the OMG you glued it ! Yet we often glue blocks together to make a bigger block and there is no issuse with that .
So you didn't make a mistake only a modifaction =) .

Ash

[Lynn O. Doughty]

Here's a suggestion.....Carve the arm off right where it joins the body then, if you have a disk sander that sands really flat and level, sand back just beyond the armpit. Carve a new arm to that point with the grain running the length and peg it on. The glue line will be barely visable if you stain it and what does show can be touched up to disappear completely.

It's a sad fact that poses like this carved from one piece of wood almost always break. If you don't do it whoever gets it later will.

If i listed all the mistakes I make with just about every piece I do I wouldn't have much time to carve. If they're bad ones I don't tell about those, if they're good ones I brag about them. Sometimes a mistake will end up being better than the original goal. Whatever, they're always a learning experience. Just think of what kind of world it would be if all the "mistakes" weren't around!!

[Thor]

That is a very ambitious carving Doug. She does look lovely, and if you learn something from her, then it's all good. I
Thor

[Doug Ridley]

Good idea, Lynn. I may just do that. I will probably see what Mary can do with paint first.

[Doug Ridley]

Well Mary got it painted and it looks just like the ones I used stain on and it covered the repair completely. I was going to go with Lynn's idea as plan B but plan A worked fine. As it has a dowel in it it should be even better (stronger) than the others. It won't be ready for lacquer until tomorrow but I'll post a pic then.

[BobD]

Kenny Vermillion, one of our authors, calls carving a series of corrections...

Bob

[Doug Ridley]

Well it's done and the repair is hidden. I can't even find it myself and I know exactly where it is. Thanks to Lynn for the suggestion. If I make another one I will probably do that from the start to avoid problems. Here it is finished.