woodcarving after a tornado

some new carved furniture and spoons

Oct 28, 2024

There were quite the piles of broken limbs, twisted trees, and roots wrong-side-up; the aftermath of tornadoes in my hometown a few months ago.

a couple of small piles of wood after the storm

After the storms, we visited to clean up a little and process some of the wood for future wood working and for current greenwood carving. My childhood home, where my parents live, lost most of the trees in the yard. These included some cherry, hickory, and maple trees to work with.

woodcarving

Before we came up to Northwest Arkansas after the storms, my parents brought a couple of pieces of cherry, hickory, and walnut from the downed trees to carve on a getaway to Jasper, AR.

I’ve been spoon carving, so the fresh greenwood was perfect.

A smaller log gave the opportunity for some variation in color with the lighter sapwood and the darker heartwood.

All of the work is done by hand with axe and knives. I’ve been amazed over this last year by what you can create with simpler tools as I’ve started down the rabbit hole of spoon carving and slöjd.

Anyway, here’s a picture of the first spoons carved for my mom and niece (before the finish) and there are more pics at the bottom of the email:

And then here’s a couple of pictures of the spoons after the oil and wax finish with the opposite half of the log. It’s neat to see the color and the shapes in the log alongside the finished spoons:

processing some bigger logs

Thanks to Alex for coming over to help quarter-split some of the wood for seasoning. This is going to be a big help to have the wood drying and prepared to be used for projects in the future.

Working here by hand has been a big learning experience. It’s the first time I’m splitting and drying wood like this. I’ve split smaller logs for firewood, but never this much wood that’s this big for future use. It’s been awesome to learn from hands-on experience how wood splits down the bigger logs and try my hand at processing and air-drying without a mill or kiln.

newer wood carvings

I just wrapped up some work at a craft fair here in Rogers, AR and brought out some logs from the storm to carve live in person. I’ll share some pics and thoughts here, but you can see some more photos and a video of carving here on my Instagram.

Lina

The first stool I made is called Lina (after the goblin creature from The Princess and Curdie). I love the leg shapes that came from the log.

pebble stools

These smaller stools are unfinished since I just carved them at the fair with axe and draw knife and then rasp to clean up the seat edges. I love the way they’re turning out! I think these might be one of my new favorite things to create. Let me know what you think.