Work begins on the wizard, but not without some minor disaster right off the bat. Let's just say there's a lot of short grain in this piece and I'm going to have to be very careful with certain parts. The arms are of great concern. I managed to break one off. The add-on pieces near the bottom are also very delicate.I roughed out as much as I could with the band saw, but as you can see by all the shaded areas, there's a lot left that I have to get rid of some other way.
With the blank screwed to my shop-made vice and started hogging off big chunks of wood. Novice mistake! Before I knew it, the left arm was lying on the floor. I let a few expletives fly, took a deep breath and decided to make the most of the situation. It was a clean break and a fairly large area, maybe 1" square, so I know I can get a good glue joint. I have to drill that sleeve for the hand anyway, so I can reinforce the arm with a dowel which will never be seen. I realized I could get at some areas more easily while the arm is off, so I worked on it in those areas before gluing the arm back. This would have been a tricky joint to clamp, but a strip of old bike tire made the task simple, fast and safe [no clamp dents].
Lesson learned though. I will have to take my time if I don't want to be gluing up broken pieces for the rest of this carving. Why didn't I make the arms separate and glue them on after? I thought about it, but then I looked at those long, pointed sleeves and realized they needed to have the grain running up and down. I know the thin wrists are going to be be a problem if they are cross-grained, so they will be made and glued on separately. Now I have to go take off that inner tube and see how my glue job came out ...
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