Haven't carved anything in a long while...

[Darksev]

and I've kinda had the itch lately. After a frustrating week of knife customizing where nothing went right, I needed a bit of a break. The other week I had a couple of Tagua nuts show up in the mail. I've been thinking about trying some scrimshaw, and frankly I think tag nuts are just neat For those not familiar with them, Tagua nuts are the seeds from an Ivory palm. Once they harden up, they are pure cellulose, and are damn near a perfect substitute for elephant ivory, except they have no grain structure.

End result is kinda tiny, really hard to photograph, but neat enough that I wanted to share it. I think the only folks that would understand would be you all here, so here's a raw tagua nut, a quarter (for size) and a carved "Maori fishhook"

I had fun, it's been a long while since I cut into anything, and I think I might make a couple more, refine if, if you will. Thanks for lookin

[jonet143]

a man of many talents, very cool adam. how does it cut? are they hollow?

[Darksev]

Without alot to compare it to, I'd say it cuts like ivory or maybe a hard-ish stone (harder than soapstone or pipestone, both of which I've played with before). the no grain thing is readily apparent when your working it. it files and sands more consistantly than it carves.

The two nuts I have cut up so far have had small voids in the center of them, which I'm told it pretty normal, but if your lucky you can get one or two 1/4 inch or so thick slabs by working around the center where the void is. It's all guess work, there's no way to know for sure what it's like before you cut into it. I've seen people selling nice sized slabs, instead of whole nuts, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them, so I opted for the whole thing. supposedly these things are like coconut and they harden from the outside in, so that's where your void comes from.

[carvin don]

Very neat!

[gmusic]

Very cool..........................they will make nice ear rings!

[TM]

really cool, Adam

[Diligence]

I've had 4 or 5 of these in my shop now for the past 8 years!!! Never got around to using them yet.

Funny thing, my Dad got them for me to carve....wait for it.....Maori style pendants! Too funny - now I guess I know what it would look like. Usually just used Northern Saskatchewan soapstone in the past.

J

[stagman]

Adam, I swear, that looks like ivory more than some ivory
I have saw. You sure as hell got something very very
unique and cool with that piece.
Bet in the right market place, like possibly eskimo carvings
you see in Alaska of little animal figures, that would fetch a good dollar
Great job
Will
http://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/clearcreekknives

[Darksev]

I've put a bit of a hold on purely "knife" projects the last few weeks. things were not going well, so I decided I needed a mental break. I finished up another hook, a bit more elaborate this time, since I knew what to expect, then made something for myself. I got a bit of Mokume and carved myself a "Koru" to wear. You can just barely see the grain in it, but my plan is to let it patina naturally over time, "grow" if you will, since a Koru is supposed to be a sprouting fern frond the copper should turn nice and brown all on it's own, like an old penny

Hoping to get back to my knives soon, it's always fun for a change of pace though

[Diligence]

those look super!!!!

more! more!

j