Scrollwork carving

[difalkner]

This is a project I started over 20 years ago but shelved when I moved and I've kept it intact through a couple of moves now.  I was waiting on some laser work for my guitar logo a few days ago and decided to pull this out and finish it (my friends don't know anything about it so it's not really late... LOL!).

Anyway, it's Honduras Mahogany and is about 7"x12" and 1/4" thick.  I designed this in CorelDRAW and have done about 6 of these for friends.  They take me about 25 hours start to finish.  Or in this case, about 20 years!

It's all done with the drill press, scroll saw, Dremel hand-held and on a router base, X-Acto knife, and with palm carving tools and then finished in Nitrocellulose lacquer.  The berries and branches have water based aniline dye to provide a bit of contrast.  I finished this one is satin instead of gloss because there are so many diverging surfaces on the berries and leaves that they just glare and cause a lot of specular highlights.

Thanks for looking - enjoy!
David

So, it sat like this for 20+ years -

This is after most of the carving.  The berries and branches don't stand out as much once the finish is applied -

Finished -

[shaneymack]

That looks like quite an undertaking, David ! I could see why it took you twenty years LOL

Sent from my SM-N910W8 using Tapatalk

[wtnhighlander]

Very nice, David. Must take a lot of patience to work such a delicate project.

[difalkner]

Thanks, Guys!!

I may do another one soon but I'll see if I can trim it to less than 10 years...

Patience is something I have a boatload of but these don't require much of that.  Just gotta' take one little task at a time and go around until you move on to the next tool.  I did notice that when I worked on it 20 years ago I could stay at it longer.  This think killed my back!  I could only stay on it for an hour or so before I had to stop and walk around.