Could be a bit better in hindsight since I learned a few things but I’m pretty happy with it nonetheless. Made from poplar, carved it all by hand, filed and sanded it, has neodymium magnets embedded inside to hold the knife and scabbard together, stained the wood and painted into the carvings with white enamel paint and then waxed the whole thing.

Wood work is fun.

    • golden_zealot@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      3·
      16 hours ago

      Thanks! I had to buy a magnifying visor and some pin files for this project because while carving that out was pretty straightforward, sanding inside of the grooves etc there was not haha.

    • golden_zealot@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      2·
      14 hours ago

      Thanks, and yes I found the paint was a necessity here. Because of how the grain runs and how the stain turned out - I saw that in spots like those finer flowers toward the tip, that the carving was kind of ‘washed out’ and hard to see the shape of, so the paint helps a lot.

    • golden_zealot@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      4·
      15 hours ago

      Thanks! I made this from a poplar dowel which was large enough in diameter that when I purchased it at the hardware store it turned the heads of several employees who also asked this haha. The color is from stain however. For that I used Minwax Penetrating Stain (Dark Walnut 2716) which is an oil based stain.

      I really want to find a good wood supplier locally because if I had a better choice I would have tried with real walnut. I would also love to work with maple or cherry (though some of these are hard to hand carve with because they are very hard woods). Poplar is relatively soft so it is nicer for hand carving.

      • GrantUsEyes@lemmy.zipEnglish
        2·
        14 hours ago

        Ooh, the result is very cool. Loved the piece :D I’d like to carve something in wood as well, I find carving very relaxing, although I’ve only done it for lino cut prints.

        • golden_zealot@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
          1·
          1 hour ago

          It’s nice for sure, but be sure to stock up on medical supplies if you get into it because it is pretty much inevitable you will cut yourself (sometimes fairly badly).

          I keep good stock of a lot of sanitary cotton and medical tape (much more useful than a standard adhesive bandage when it comes to bandaging odd angles on your hands), alcohol, polysporin, and cyanoacrylate glue (super glue) - which I have had to use twice since I started playing around with hand carving.

          The super glue helps for deep (but not wide) cuts to protect them while they heal and to hold them closed once you have a handle on the bleeding - if the cut is both wide and deep then I would still highly recommend getting a doctor to apply stitches, though thankfully I haven’t had to do that due to the hobby so far.

          I got away without any injuries on this project though!