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Posted by Kris Krieger on April 15, 2008, 12:11 pm
>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> THis is where talking about weird little buildings took me:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~sequin/SCULPTS/collins.html
>>>>>
>>>>> Holy Toledo, I'm wondering how he actually *does* that stuff, I
>>>>> mean, shaping the wood.
>>>>> If you look close you'll see that he has done considerable
>>>>> glue-ups of hundreds of pieces of wood and then somehow carves the
>>>>> stuff - knives, chisels, angle grinders, dremels, zip tools, etc.
>>>>> and then HUGE amounts of sanding. Jayziss....
>>>>
>>>> It'd haev to gbe assembled so as to stabilize it as much as
>>>> possible - I've
>>>> been trying to figure out how to do the nuts'n'bolts of the actual
>>>> shaping.
>>>> THat's got me stumped. THen ther eis , as you note, teh formidible
>>>> finishing work. I thought it was really something.
>>>
>>> Last night I was looking at chainsaw scupture as thats something I'm
>>> sort of interested in and I happened upon a site called
>>> www.chainsawchick.com The woman was a rocker in the 70's and now she
>>> does chainsaw stuff.
>>
>> I checked it out; cute ;)
>>
>>> A little deceptive whats going on.
>>> There's lots of that stuff around here and the quality is all over
>>> the place.
>>
>> OTOH, that's true of pretty much everything - a lot of simple to
>> moderate items, a few that are well-crafted, and then once in a
>> while, Art ;)
>>
>>> The nicer stuff isn't done with just a chainsaw as the finish is
>>> rather rustic.
>>> Many people take it further and use lots of various finishing tools
>>> to make the whole thing smoother, more refined.
>>> I like the ones that are done on site to existing stumps - they turn
>>> an ugly stump into a wonderful work of yard art.
>>
>> There seems to be a whole genre of, for lack of a more accurate term,
>> "backwoods art", or I guess it might be called Folk Art (tho' I'm not
>> sure). It reminds me a bit of the "branch furniture", or whatever
>> it's called, where people find branches and whatnot and, using
>> minimal cutting/finishing, weave it together into benches and so on.
>>
>> It's not my personal style/taste, but it *can* look nice in the right
>> setting ;)
>
> We have a load of hardwood logs laying over here on the side of the
> driveway that were cut down when I built the garage and they need to
> go. I have a fair amount of chainsaw use under my belt but I'm betting
> I don't have the patience to endure hours of chainsaw abuse in an
> effort to create art.
(1) You never know 'till you try ;)
(2) Maybe you would like doing a differnt *form* of art/craft. (I somehow
don't quite picture you as the cutesypie-critters type <g!>) IOW,
rather than figures, maybe cut the logs into sections and reassemble them
into abstract sculptures - that might be more in tune with your
architectural mindset. And/or boreholes in shapes and set them up as
unusual landscape-lighting - heck, they sell these solar lights that are
sort-of vaguely rock-like, so why not "log lighting"? Make a hollow,
carve out some holes for light to shie out of, stick a solar cell on top,
wire it up, and Voila'! You could get two rounds, hollow them out like
bowls, hollow out some opeings for the light to shine out, stick in the
lighting, epoky them together, and put on a coating of resin or urethane
or whatever. You could even get fancy and put in some plexiglss to
protect the innards. If you wanted to get fancy, shape them a little
bit, nothing too elaborate, and insert lighting into the shapes for a
more sculptural (or depending upon the shapes, surreal) effect. -- I'd
bet you dollars to donuts you could even sell things like that. I mean,
heck, you've got the logs, and more importantly, you've got the workshop
and you've got the tools! All you'd need is some solar-light kits, or
wiring stuff for low-voltage outdoor lighting. I'm sure I've seen such
things for sale on-line somewhere. Hey, here's one for ya!, I can make
and sell ya some mini sained-glass inserts for the light-openings <G!>
Then you can call it "Garden ART" and charge even more <LOL!>
SOrry, I couldn't resist th ecompulsion to get the stained glass bti in
there, since I'm (finally!) taking a class now <LOL!> OTOH, it's not
necessarily a *bad* idea...
> One of my other ideas is to cut the logs in 16" lengths and stand them
> up single file around the edge of the driveway then backfill them with
> dirt to act as a divider between the driveway and the yard.
That can look nice - one tip, get some good-quality fiberglass (20-year)
Landscape Fabric (a.k.a. weed-barrier) and line the back of the row -
that'll keep the soil from seeping through any spaces. It will also cut
down on weeds growing in-between, and if any do get in , makes it easier
to deal with them.
Another thing I've seen is to use round cross-cuts as stepping "stones".
HEY!,
you can elaborate on that by adding in the lights mentioned above :)
Then there is the whole "rustic outdoor furniture" angle - a bit of
shaping, and heck tschlep insome lights ;) , and Voila'!, benches and so
on that double as lighting.
There are all sorts of things you can do. Again, you have the materials
and you have the tools and the workshop, so it's not liek a person who
has to buy all that before doing anything. So, the only limit is
imagination ;)
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