Checkmate, Bitches

Since it's Sunday afternoon, and I don't have a whole lot to do today, I might as well show you one of the things that's been keeping me busy lately.

When I moved into the room I'm in now, the woman who was here before left some stuff behind. Well, she pretty much left everything behind and took off overseas, never to be seen again. She left behind things like a unicycle, juggling stuff, and I hear rumours she owned an accordian. I have come to the conclusion this woman was a bear-trainer. Did I mention she was Russian?

Anyways, some of the contents of this pile of stuff included a full set of woodcarving tools, a bunch of different files and rasps, a big block of stuff, and a bunch of sandpaper.

Now, I didn't know what this big block of stuff was. It was heavy. I thought it was some kind of composite material for beginner carvers, so we (roomate Rob and I) went ahead and cut it in half, so we could each have one. Then we decided to carve a chess piece, and see who's turned out to be more mind-blowingly awesome.

Sorry some of them are so insanely blurry. It was really low light, the flash made it all invisible, and I was way too lazy to get my tripod to balance it, and the focus was off.

That's the gentleman's way of saying I was drunk. Yeah, we decided to have a beer-fueled carve-off. It went better than the unicycle contest, which left me with bloody shins and a bruised ego.

The original cut-up block

 Turns out this stuff wasn't a composite at all, it was soapstone. I've been looking everywhere in K-W for a place that sells this stuff, if anyone knows somewhere, let me know.

After taking that edge off, and evening it up somewhat

After I rounded it out. I put a piece of masking tape on it to mark where I wanted the top to be. 

 Of course you can't tell I put the tape there because the camera isn't focused. It's a good I'm here to explain what's going on.

Rob Carving away at his chunk

How to cut yourself, step one

After I scraped out the middle with a file and chisel

Not the finished product, but the rough shape.

I believe at that point the beer got more important than the camera, I don't really have any more shots of it being worked on. Unfortunately Rob dropped his, and he was making the top parts pretty narrow, so it broke. I'll throw finished shots of all of them at the end. Except Robs, because I don't have one.

All of them? What, there's more? But Josh, with such a busy and active lifestyle, how could you possibly have found time to carve more than one piece?

Well, Dear Readers, it's all about balance. I have to balance my extremely strenuous and hectic life with calm, soothing activities like this. I also read to orphans in the hospital on my spare time.

Anyways, the next one i carved was supposed to be a knight at first, but I accidentally chopped it's face off while i was doing rough cuts with a small saw. Whoops. Now it's a pawn.

Nice, clean area. Note the lack of dust on every conceivable surface. Good times.

The (out of focus) Block!

The (out of focus) Cylinder! If this was a picture of the dust, I'd be set

Again, using masking tape to tell me where not to file

Starting to flatten out the top. More work than I realized. About 4 hours more.

Almost done.

Size Reference. Though I guess you don't have anything to compare the rook too, so it's not much of a reference at all.

Alright. I am getting super tired of resizing photos and uploading them. Thankfully this is the last one, for now. And there's only three because I wasn't taking pictures the whole time.

The block. I didn't cut the face off this time.

Starting to cut in underneath

The rough, rough shape.

 I did the knight outside, thankfully. Lot less mess to clean up. I decided to try doing it wet to cut down on the dust. That worked super well, and was easier.

The next few pictures are the finished pieces. They're still wet, after sanding and polishing and sanding and sanding.

 Yeah, they have a lot of rough spots and assymetrical areas, but I'm still really proud of them. I've never carved something out of a block like this before. Each one took at least 4 hours, a lot more with the polishing and sanding. For me to sit in one spot and focus on absolutely anything at all for four hours is nothing short of a miracle.

Let me know if you find this interesting, and if anyone does, I'll do this every time i carve something. But focused.