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Eagle Heads

Figureheads get lots of attention in maritime museum exhibits. There are even museum collections of figureheads lost at sea. Often, the names of the ships they graced are unknown. If we knew, we could reconstruct a travelogue of all the ports they’d seen.

But many ships lacked figureheads. The old figure went overboard in a storm, or if the owners were Quakers, religious sentiments forbade a figurehead. In its place, a billet head—a bit of fancy carved scrollwork with a small bust or other ornament on top—was used.

While I love figureheads, I’ve never seen the business interest in carving them – much too restricted as a trade. Instead, I’ve carved small billet heads for the sort of small vessel that could sport them these days. Many of the ones I’ve carved hold up signs, grace entryways, or act as bookends. Billet heads are attractive and we can size them for smaller vessels, boats, or home use.

The photo above shows a sample of the billet heads I’ve carved. The green scroll was the first one I did. I simplified my version from a traditional design Jay Hanna carved. The three eagles are of my design but modeled on traditional 19th-century styles. My favorite is closest to the viewer. I carved it in western sugar pine and made the mounting element from mahogany.

The eyes on the eagles are the most essential part of the carving. The feathers look complex but are pretty simple. Get the eyes right, though, and the birdie seems to follow you about the room, casting a gimlet eye on your doings.
Better behave. They see everything you are doing – in jest or earnest.

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More on Tools

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, a Drummer was not just a percussionist. A drummer was a traveling salesman who’d make the rounds with tools, clothes, or anything else you might wish to purchase but could not easily find at the small retail establishments in your town. Think no internet, no Walmart, and few large department stores.
Now think about trade carvers; that’s right, there were many of them. They designed and made patterns and signs and carved the furniture decorations one at a time. Anything to be cast, machined, or reproduced required making an original master, and the carver was the individual who did that. With a good number of craftspeople to serve, there were tool makers who catered to these specialists.

The photo shows a collection of tools I am using for some tight recess carving on the jib sails of the ship portrait I am working on. The tools are primarily tiny back bents and knuckle tools that will fit into tight recesses. There are only a few manufacturers of these today, and I don’t like the design of their tools. So I purchased, for short money, this batch of C. Maier tools. The company was in business from about 1880 to maybe 1928 in Newark, NJ. Most of the tools I’ve seen that they produced are like those I bought – back bents, knuckles, and fishtails – good tools for working in recesses or miniature work.

The ones I purchased were in amazingly good shape but well-used. The carver who owned them before me was likely not their original owner. They are good tools that have lasted through at least three owners.
Nowadays, I go to a tool retailer and order online, but when these tools showed up in their first owner’s shop, that was not possible. Without the World Wide Web or specialty tool stores, they might have mail-ordered from a catalog or had a visit from a Drummer who would have shown them the tools, let them handle them, and taken their order.

Special needs are why carvers wind up with racks of tools, not a sort of wild tool lust.

OK, I’m lying. It’s a necessity, but also tool lust…I need a twelve-step program.
Hi, I am Lou Carreras. I’m addicted to buying tools.

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Mastery

Yesterday, I spent a significant part of the day working on a carving of a large schooner. I based it on research I did for an earlier schooner built by the same yard around the same time in the late 19th century. 

I used skills acquired in the earlier carving to ease the work on the sails’ design. The sails on a vessel like this are most of what you see. So having their contours “look” right, not just be shaped “right,” is critical. After finishing the earlier carving, I spent time analyzing the degree of satisfaction I had with design execution. There were places where my techniques failed to give the correct effect on the jib sails. How I added the masts also looked like a very inadequate paste job – they needed to be proportioned correctly.

So, I figured out a better way to cut in the background around the jibs’ tack . They’ll look crisper in the carving, now. Next I’ll be experimenting with how the masts are tapered and colored ( very lightly). My skill set as a carver grew.

Now for the rant part of this post. Anyone who’s been involved in a quality control process or recognizes the term Kaizen will understand what I am about here. As an artist or crafter, I am not static. I don’t just have a standard job that I repeat infinitely. This is what I have against the concept of being a “Master.” The term carries more than a hint of being a survivor of a race to a pinnacle – a point of stasis. Stasis is precisely what I do not want in my work.

I recollect watching seventh and eighth-dan sensei (seventh and eighth-degree black belts in Japanese swordsmanship) gently pointing out flaws in kata to one another. Even at their degree of mastery, there was room for improvement. That’s the sort of mastery I aspire to – skill sets and concepts of working continually growing.

In art and craft, mastery is a moving target, which is healthy.

Daily writing prompt
What are you good at?
View all responses
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A Birchwood Bowl in process

Photographs help me remember steps and processes. Years ago, I used photography only to record the results. But pictures of the in-between stages were more than a bit helpful. One of the big reasons I say this is because there are some things that I only do rarely. Reminders are valuable.
I need to be a better journalist. I may or may not have a series of notes on processes, like how I finished a particular project five years ago. If I have not, then a photographic record helps to prompt memory. In the case of this bowl, I have a short series of shots.

Prominent in some of these photos is the gooseneck scraper. Why? Because a well-sharpened and burnished gooseneck is the most effective tool for removing the rough marks and scratches of earlier gouge and sanding work. The temptation is to sand it and forgo the scraping. However, the scraper saves labor and reduces the amount of sanding required.


In the above photo, the bowl has reached the stage where the interior, the most challenging place to finish on a small bowl, is almost done. I’ve given it a first coat of a food-safe varnish to see the grain of the soon-to-be-finished bowl. The finish also reveals the spots that are still rough.

I made this bowl from a piece of birch I found in my pile of firewood. It had nice grain and was deep and wide enough to create a pretty bowl. As firewood, I find birch only so-so. But I am always scouting the firewood for material that can be up-cycled into valuable things. Hopefully, someday, someone will prize the little bowl and find pleasure in running hands along its contours and gazing at the twists in the grain.

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The Woodcarver and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

If you studied economics, process engineering or are an enthusiast of popular psychology, you might have heard of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. It’s alive and well in woodcarving too. Sunk costs are costs you have paid and can’t get back. 

That’s fine if everything works out. But if the project just hasn’t been the success you wished for, the temptation is to keep trying to fix it. Sometimes it can’t be fixed. And that’s the sunk cost fallacy: The belief that just one more project revision will allow the Goony Bird Mk 29 to fly.

I knew the fallacy well. I called it “just one more cut.” The piece will work with one more cut to clean up that angle. Five cuts later, the chip carving is worse off than when I started. I was most familiar with it from chip carving because some of the balance and symmetry of a piece come from all cuts sharing similar geometry; if one facet is out of balance, the carving looks odd.

I saw it a lot more when I started teaching. I start my courses with chip carving to teach tool control and the importance of sharp tools. An occasional student could not stop cutting and adjusting. Rarely did any of this result in a saved piece of work. I described it to my students at WoodenBoat School as “just one more cut.”

Later, over dinner, an engineer in my class told me about the sunk cost fallacy. As I write this, I can think of an eagle I’ve carved that I’d love to take one more cut on. See, it’s pervasive.

Here’s some advice I’ve offered that applies well here:

  •  First, turn the carving bottom for the top; how bad is the perceived defect? 
  • Second, using a hand mirror, view the work from various perspectives; once again, how bad is the defect? 
  • Third, put down the tools and work on something else for the rest of the day. Come back later. 
  • Fourth, study the effect of the corrective cut before you do it. What are the chances of that cut fixing the problem? 
  • Fifth, when realizing you’ve wasted hours mulling over ten minutes of carving, throw the junk into the kindling bucket and do it right. It’s harder to do the further along the piece is; I’m not telling you that I have no struggles with this.

So, Robert Elliot, a colleague of mine who produces gorgeous Windsor chairs, once scolded me that we can’t just throw everything that had a mistake away. We have to learn how to fix errors. That’s the value of the first steps, knowing what we did wrong, thinking about how it can be fixed, and evaluating if it’s worth fixing. Hopefully, we will learn enough to avoid repeat errors and the frustration of endlessly falling into the sunk cost fallacy. 

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Zaida “sits” for her portrait

Although the steam yacht Zaida sits within the frame on the wall, it is not quite complete. More steel wool rubbing is needed on the oil-varnish finish, and the sails’ detailing needs recutting where final sanding is removed it. I also may gold leaf the filigree at the bow. But I needed a break from work and wanted to see how it looked hung the wall.

This is my second run at the Steam Yacht Zaida. I’ve used different techniques and am more satisfied with the outcome.
To be clear, I do not do scale models. This is neither flat art nor scale modeling. It’s very much in line with the 19th century Dioramas that sailors made of the vessels they served on.

Zaida was built in 1910 at the J.S. White yard In Cowes, England. I’ve shown her here as she appears in the builders drawing. The drawing suggested a seriously overrigged arrangement which included a square yard forward and the possibility of a large staysail amidships. I doubt she ever flew that much canvas since she is described as a twin-screw auxiliary schooner.
For this portrait, I’ve reduced the sail plan to something more modest for the deck division to handle. However, at 149 feet in length, she must have had a relatively large crew.

In 1916 Zaida became an auxiliary Patrol vessel in the Royal Navy, armed with six-pound guns. Unfortunately, she was sunk while on patrol near Alexandria that August.

What’s involved in making one of these portraits? First, research, then selective compression of what you will include, and then carving. Research may be as easy as using a builders illustration to figure out the lines for a small sailboat like a small sloop or catboat. But on a larger vessel, especially an older one, research may never yield the sort of completion you wish. For every ship for which a plan exists in a research library or online database, thousands exist only in grainy photos and magazine articles. Sometimes these are the most interesting.

background being leveled
The carving with some of the research material
carving mostly complete
final stages

After research, you must create a plan for the hull, sail, stacks, and other parts. Sometimes commercial parts exist, but other times it all must be fabricated. Then you can start carving, and in many ways, that is the easy part. The total number of hours? For Zaida, about five hours of research, five of design, and fourteen for carving. Finishing is about four hours. So Zaida required about twenty-eight to thirty hours total. Of course, all this varies depending upon the size, research required, and amount of carving and finishing.

A small sloop is relatively quick to do. And small sloops, catboats, and schooners make up most of the portraits. Something like Zaida is for stretching your skills.

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Paper and Scissors

I found the wood sitting in the shorts at my favorite hardwood dealer. It was very dark, heavy, and dense. It was mahogany but so dark and heavy that I felt it was a wayward piece of Dominican, not Honduran. It was just what I wanted.
I wanted to create a banner with a distinctive font, Barnhard Modern. I also wanted to give the banner a center and ends that undulate. The result was pleasing. At shows, people run their hands over the banner as a sensual experience, precisely what I wanted.

How do you do this? You must carve banner ends to appear delicate when viewed from a distance. But up close, there needs to be enough heft that they’ll stand up to the abuse they’ll get on a boat’s transom. For a show display, you have to compromise. People are way closer to the carving than they would be in another boat.

Many banners have curvature, but in most, the area which is lettered is flat. On MANDALAY, the field of the lettering undulates. So, the lettering does not stay in the same plane while laying it out or carving it. To experiment with this, I advise using wood no less than 8/4 in thickness. Any less will be too thin for the effect to work.

First, I carved the banner with all its curves and undulations. It’s essential to control your pleasure in removing wood. Easy. Remember that the effect comes from the smoothness of the curves and contours. Abrupt changes will ruin the look. Periodically take a break to place it in natural light. Turn it upside down and see if the movement of the wood flows.
For lettering, you have several options: Old School layout by hand; or New School computer layout in vinyl or paper. I chose a compromise between hand layout and computer layout on paper. The key to the paper template here is that the paper is flat, and the surface is not – hence the title: Paper & Scissors because cutting the paper will allow you to follow the undulating surface.
To follow the undulations, you slice the areas between the letters to get them to lay in the correct planes. As you layout, you also need to adjust the kerning ( distance between the letters). When completed, take the design into natural light, turn it upside down, and check to see if it still looks proportionate and balanced. I left this for a day and returned to it fresh the next morning; rested eyes see mistakes. I also find that taking photos on my phone reveals things my eyes sometimes miss.

After the layout was complete, the letter carving was like any other letter carving project. The finish is about eleven coats of Captain’s Z-Spar rubbed out after the first three priming coats and each succeeding one. The lettering I painted with One-Shot yellow sign paint. Two thin coats are better than a single thick covering.

Although gold leafing is an entirely separate topic, I advise that you do yourself an enormous favor and allow the varnish to cure before gold leafing. Remember that’s cure, not dry. Varnish manufacturers will tell you that varnish dries in twenty-four hours. But that is not the same as curing.

Gold leaf has a nasty tendency to stick to anything. But especially uncured varnish. I frequently allow a week or more for the varnish to cure; move on to another project, and come back later to apply gold leaf.

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Acorns to Oaks*

We all want to be instant experts. One of my sensei describes this in terms of the training montages that are standard fare in martial arts movies; the neophyte progresses from clumsy beginner to skilled pro in thirty seconds of cinematic snapshots. The rest of us suffer from dissatisfaction and disappointment from being less than optimal for much longer.
Not every time, but more frequently than I’d like, I get confronted with the unique. And, all of a sudden I am a neophyte once more. Incorporating new materials, using new types of paints, complex constructions, and most especially very small parts that need fabrication all create confrontations with the problematic.

When I was doing banners, quarter boards, transoms, and the odd eagle, the problems were mostly mechanical – design layout, curvature to fit, and calculating shadows in carved lettering.

Boat and ship portraits offer many more issues. I am presenting a practice piece of the very first boat portrait I ever did. Remember, practice pieces are exactly like the rough sketches you do of a subject before you paint – the practice is to work out the approach, shapes, and rendering before you start the actual work. Being that carving is subtractive, this saves you from ruining expensive wood and wasting time.

practice carving of a 19 foot Eltro for a mast hoop portrait

Over the years, I’ve done many portraits. I’ve borrowed techniques from model makers, painters, and illustrators. I’ve also had to develop some tricks of my own. The single most important thing will seem trite: challenge is what differentiates those who are growing from those who are standing still intellectually and as artists.

Principal carving is complete, finishing the coaming and adding some details are all that's left before fitting into the hoop
Principal carving is complete, finishing the coaming and adding some details are all that’s left before fitting into the hoop.

There are about two years between my first practice piece and my rendering of a cat boat for a mast hoop portrait. Principal carving is complete, finishing the coaming and adding some details are all that’s left before fitting into the hoop.

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Easy Pieces

I admit that the sort of non complex carving that happens when I carve a small bowl is pretty alluring. No antsy detail. No pattern that needs to be followed. Just follow the will of the wood.

today I put up a new page on the site for hand carved bowls, but thought that I’d spend a bit of time taking about my favorites . I am kind of hoping that these do not sell at next weeks show. I’ve made the mistake of getting attached to them.

Only a few inches around, the banding on the sides and interior, and the rough lip make this one a favorite just to hold and look at. Made from a piece of cherry firewood.

This second one was also from firewood. I love the subtle grain pattern and the rough lip.

This third bowl was from a slightly larger piece of cherry firewood. I had enough wood to form a bit of a handle. I went experimental and charred the interior with a torch. Before finishing you scrape off most to the char, leaving just blackened wood. There are slight defects in the wood that in my mind make the piece even more interesting.

I’ve done a number of others, and like them, but these are my favorites.

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New and Old

We can easily get lost in the weeds talking about tradition in crafts. It’s just hard to avoid observing that technology casts long shadows when you make something and call it traditional. The majority of shops that work with wood use bandsaws, table saws, and jointers. These tools have been around long enough not to ignite a vendetta among purists looking for “traditionally crafted goods.” But the technological landscape is always changing for the craftsperson.
Recently I have been nosing about on the borders. A few years ago, a series of eye surgeries compromised my ability to do certain types of woodcarving, mostly lettering. After surgery, I began to explore what I could and couldn’t conveniently do. The vision changes prompted the carving shop’s move from the old basement workshop into the greenhouse – I needed lots of light. Last year I also began to play around incorporating laser engraving and cutting as an adjunct to my carving.
Some things worked well, and others fell flat. Frankly, it’s all a work in progress. The small sign shown above is one of the projects that worked. Some of the others wound up feeding the woodstove.
Is it traditional? Well, was it traditional when craftspeople and artists began using acrylic paints or using computers to assist them in design?

Years ago, when I worked as an anthropologist, I knew a woman who crafted the most incredible Ukrainian Easter eggs. One afternoon over coffee Elizabeth introduced me to the history of technological innovation in the world of decorated Easter eggs. Over the centuries, dies and methods of preparation changed. But the community accepted the eggs because of the continuity of design and meaning in the community.
Back in the ’80’s colleagues were musing about Cambodian kite makers shifting from traditional fabrics used in Cambodia to the ripstop nylon available to them here in the United States. The maker of traditional Cambodian dance costumes received mention also. One of them had adopted the hot glue gun and factory-made jewelry findings to construct elaborate headdresses and other costume bits. They looked like the old style, but the components and techniques had evolved.

On one project I worked on years ago with boatbuilders, I asked builders what they thought was the central concept that defined the traditional boat. I had expected them to talk about materials, construction techniques, and design. I wasn’t disappointed because they all mentioned those things to one degree or another, but as a group, they said the value placed on the boat by the community that used them was central. One well-known figure I interviewed ( Lance Lee) suggested the term “cherish” as the central concept – the boats were cherished and valued by the community. It was the community of users that made something traditional.

The laser engraver that sits in the basement, and my visual handicap, got me thinking about these things. The concept of craft, especially when labeled traditional, has some minefields laid in it for the artisan. Look beyond technology to intent, the community’s acceptance of the product, and the continuation of design tradition. Sometimes we might be daunted by what we see, but the first carver who moved from a stone or bone tipped tool to one of metal started us on the moving process of technology in arts and craft.

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New York Pilot Boat 5

This chest was not in stock long enough for me to do a proper set of photos. It sold at it’s first appearance at the Maine Boatbuilder’s Show to a pair of Boston Harbor pilots who were going to give it as a retirement gift to a colleague. The chest itself was of fairly common pine with teak keys for strength and decorative effect.
The top though, that’s some pine of a different pedigree. The pine tree was felled by the great hurricane of 1938. At the time it came down, it had been the tallest tree in the town of Shirley, Massachusetts. Very probably old growth, the entire top was just a segment of the plank I purchased from the retired dairy farmer, who, in true Yankee fashion, refused to let such a good tree go to waste and made it into planks.


The pilot boat itself was pilot number 5 from New York Harbor. Pilot boats had to be extremely fast and able, and this design shows a flexible sail plan and sweet lines. Somewhere I have a slew of pilot boat designs but have not had an opportunity to carve another. Beautiful boats like this are hard to resist.

for a more recent look into New York Harbor pilotage take a look at Tugsters post of a pilot boat mothership: https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/72558/posts/2868136611

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Wood

Wood occupies a central part of our lives. We love our cherry spoons, Mahogany cabinets, and teak deck chairs. As consumers, there is much that you don’t know about your favorite woods.

Smell:

Ash has a sweetish odor, that is uniquely distinctive when you saw it or burn it. Fresh red birch has a scent that takes you back to the best root beers you’ve ever had. Cherry bark smells like tasty cough syrup. And oak has an earthy odor to it. If you work with fresh-cut timber, these are some of the sensations that the tree shares with you, and which the uninitiated remain unaware.

Color:

Love the look of mahogany, the beautiful color of cherry, or walnut? The tree didn’t add them for you. Trees live in a highly competitive environment where organisms are always attacking the tree, looking for a meal. To deter the attacks, trees deposit chemicals into their wood that inhibit insects, bacteria, and fungi. After we cut the timber, those chemicals give us the coloration and some of the wood’s durability.

Toxicity:

Some woods are toxic to us. A wood called Pink Ivory is lovely to look at but is dangerous because of the chemicals in the wood. In use, it needs sealing before it’s safe for us to use. 

Woodworkers need to be especially aware that the dust caused by sanding some species is irritating. Mahogany and teak fall into that category. Not everyone is sensitive, but wearing protective gear is an excellent way of avoiding dermatitis or respiratory issues.

Food Safety:

Normally most of what I’ve mentioned is not too important to the average consumer. There is one area to aware of, and that is treen. Treen ( derived from the word tree) are objects like spoons, spatulas, bowls, and the like. Being that we handle food with them, the potential toxicity should be considered. In North America, woods normally considered food safe are woods like maple, fruitwoods (cherry, plum, pear, and apple) birch, and poplar. I’ve used ash for cutting boards, but not for spoons because it has alternating summer and winter woods ( ring porosity) and might absorb odors and flavors when immersed. Oak, while not toxic, is ring-porous, and can impart it’s earthy taste to foods, so I do not use it.

You might notice that I have not included walnut on my list. I am rather certain that it is food safe, but I rarely use it because there are a good number of people with walnut allergies.

Spalted wood is wood with the patterns of decay caused by fungus visible on the wood. It’s beautiful to look at, but there is a significant debate as to whether or not it is food safe. I do not work with it, in part, because there is a respiratory risk to the woodworker from the spores of the fungus. Yes, many woodworkers claim that the spores can be killed by microwaving or heating the wood. It’s just not a risk I take.

Exotic woods. I stay away from them. For many, there are question marks regarding their food safety, and being that I used to sell commercially, I had product liability to worry about.

If you have questions about any of this, write me, and I’ll try to formulate an intelligent response.

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Favorites

My father’s favorite ship was the S.S. President Tyler. He sailed aboard it whenever possible from his first voyage around 1932 till he came ashore in 1946, the year I was born. Several World and Asian cruises made him a genuine China Sailor.
Sailors, merchant or naval, can have deep relationships with their ships. Call it loyalty, affection, longing, or call it what it really can be – romance. I know, I have an ache for a certain ketch I’ll never see again. Women are known to jealous of ships and boats. My first mother in law was jealous of the Cap’ns Psyche. For the sake of peace, she hid it well. My mother was not so diplomatic about my father’s love of the sea, and “that ship.” She had been a sea widow throughout their marriage and two pregnancies. Like many sea widow’s, there came a time when the husband was expected to “swallow the anchor.” More than a few arguments ended with my father threatening to go to the hiring hall and “look for a ship.”
So growing up, the Tyler was a sensitive issue. We’d regularly drive along the Hudson River to where the reserve fleet was anchored. He was looking for the Tyler. My mother was never on any of these excursions.

I had seen my father’s pictures onboard the Tyler, But I had never seen a photo of the ship itself. My mother was famous for editing her life, so it’s more than likely that she disposed of those photos when she threw out dad’s cruise scrapbooks. For her, those were not good times.

Many years later, I was teaching marine carving at the WoodenBoat School in Maine. Teaching at WoodenBoat is not just an opportunity to learn. It’s an opportunity to grow as a person through the freindhips formed with the individuals you meet there. One year one of my students was a former Master Mariner who worked for the American Bureau of Shipping. We talked about ships one night, and I told him all that I knew of the Tyler and my father’s affection for the ship. I mentioned that I’d love to carve a portrait of the Tyler but could not find enough data to start the project. I thought no more about the conversation, and at the end of the course, said goodbye to my students and returned to Massachusetts.

About three weeks later, a large envelope arrived from the ABS (American Bureau of Shipping). In it was were copies of plans and articles relating to the class of vessel to which the Tyler had belonged; enough to start the portrait. My student had searched the ABS library for the documentation that I needed.

The Tyler was my first large portrait. I can now look at it and see a dozen things that I would and could do differently with twenty years of experience carving portraits. But when you finish a project it’s best to move on, or you’ll never finish.

It sails on my wall with a cherry ocean and sky heading east from Japan or China towards Los Angelos. I think my father is pleased that his ship is restored to an essential place in our lives, through the unexpected kindness of a fellow seaman.

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Eagle Eyes

While teaching, I always like to decorate the workshop with carving examples for students to use as a reference. Week-long excursions to teach away from home mean emptying the house of many of my carvings. But samples in three dimensions often are better than pictures or demonstration, and the extra work was worth it.
During one summer course, A student was working on an eagle and suddenly stopped, got up, and went over to an eagle billet head. He picked it up and turned the head away from him. Noticing me watching, he shrugged his shoulders and said: “it was watching me.”
Smiling, I pointed out that he was perfecting the eagle’s body plan and feathers without working on the head, most notably the eye. He asked me why it mattered, and I told him that it was essential to fair the contours of the head and neck into the body, so the eagle looked all of one piece when finished. The head is temporarily attached to the body with a screw while you carve the neck fair to the body.
” But why was it watching me?”
Well, I explained, years ago, while I was first carving eagles, a talented carver from Boothbay Harbor advised me to always start the head before detailing and finish the eye first. There was a practical reason for this. The eye was a delicate piece of work, and if not done right could ruin the whole birdie. He then added that he had been taught to do the eye first so the eagle could oversee the carving’s remainder. ” As I was taught, so am I teaching you.” I then turned the eagle about so it’s beady eyes were on the student. ” Being that you haven’t done the eye first, this birdie’s cousin in watching you.” I can be a first-class pain sometimes.

I carved the eyes on that particular eagle with a “tunnel” eye effect. With that manner of carving, you could get the impression that the eye watches you and moves with you. To someone easily spooked, like my student, it could be an unpleasant sensation.
There are several ways to carve eagle eyes for traditional marine eagles. Please note that if you carve more realistic styles, these will not appeal to you. I’m a nineteenth-century carver stuck in the twenty-first century. Be all modern if you like. Another ships carver reminded me that most people do not get close eough to smell the eagle; all these things in full size are meant to be viewed from a distance. Here are some examples of eyes:

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Twentyone

“The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The problem with imagination is that it’s boundless. On the wall is a poster telling you that you can do it if you can imagine it. Don’t take it too literally.

Aspirations aside, there are some things only possible with loads of tricks, like telling fortunes. My friend Bill had picked up some tricks of the psychic trade from working with a con artist we knew as John. Bill had a natural talent for reading people, and with the card and vocal tricks he had picked up from John, he was soon a favorite among the weekend influx of suburban kids that regularly hit the Folkie Palace. 

From fortune-telling with the kids to doing it at the Harvard Gardens for beer was a natural progression. “Imagine.” he told me- “I’m doing well while doing good.” At first, he restricted himself to doing readings for friends, but as he grew more confident, he branched out. Lovelorn young ladies came to be a specialty. One attractive woman decided that she wanted Bill’s services exclusively. He demurred politely. She grew insistent. He explained that he was married. She slapped him and walked out.

Not too much later in walked police Sargent Cappucci with the young woman behind him. We all stood up to give Bill the needed cover to run out past the men’s room and the back door into the alleyway. Knowing that Bill and I were best friends, I got collared. “Tell your little buddy that I ‘m looking for him. Playing with the affections of my niece is something I won’t tolerate.” He shoved me into the booth, and away they walked. Him fuming her crying softly. “His niece.” Said the Teahead of the August Moon. ” Sweet. Bill can always find some way to get us into trouble.”

For the next couple of weeks, we were not in good favor with the residents of Grove Street. It seemed that the entire street attracted more casual police attention than usual. Squad cars were cruising by. Officers were poking around. It curtailed summer parties and other activities. It became common knowledge that we were the cause of this attention. As a group, and as individuals, we got uninvited from everything happening in the neighborhood. People avoided sitting near us in the Harvard Gardens. 

Bill suffered from none of this. He had departed for Baltimore right after the trouble at the Gardens.

As is often the case, we don’t learn from our mistakes unless we suffer from their consequences. In this incident, only Bill’s friends have. So it came as no surprise that no one at the Folkie Palace was willing to contribute to paying the fine to get Bill out of jail in Baltimore.

He had been cutting into the action of the”legitimate” psychics in Downtown Baltimore, and they had tipped off the police. I hitched down, solicited as many of our friends as possible, and got him out.

He was a repentant, Bill. a Bill who promised never to tell a fortune again. Besides, while in the joint, he’d met this great guy who’d taught him how to count cards in Blackjack.

” Wes, have you ever been to Vegas?”

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The Grand Alliance

Daily writing prompt
Dogs or cats?
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Let’s get the facts straight. It’s not cats or dogs. It’s cats & dogs. Around here, life can be like living in one of those old-fashioned game arcades. The cats are running around, and the dog puts a paw out to trip Sabrina, causing Marcus to catch her and nip her. Marcus, the male cat, shoulder bumps Max the dog to acknowledge the assist. It’s like tag team wrestling.

Friends have come over and stated that the level of cooperation is most unusual, but we don’t think too much about it. It’s just the way things are in our house. The dog goes out, and a dome of silence covers the goings on inside. When he gets together with his buddy Moose, it’s just dog to dog stuff – one of the guys. Bark up a storm and chase squirrels. But once inside the house, the food bowls are almost side by side. During the winter, there may be a pig-pile in front of the wood stove.

And let’s not get started on how they cooperate to get me to feed them morning and evening. I swear that I catch them watching the kitchen clock. At four pm, the antics start as a coordinated ballet of intimidation and begging.

Around here, we joke that they have a union local, Cats and Dogs Local 8, Teamsters.

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Hustle

Daily writing prompt
Which activities make you lose track of time?
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I’ve been a shop recluse recently. The sound of the fan running, the scroll saw, and the mallet hitting the back of the gouge handle are all you hear. Recently, it’s been like the days before the pandemic—several projects in process, a few commissions, and the prospects of further work. It’s good.

The cats, Sabrina and Marcus, insist that all that noise disturbs the visitors to their bird feeder. They are staunch defenders of the birds’ right to eat whenever they want. It’s creating interference with their kitty cat TV. But it seems to me that the chickadees visit just as often. One flew into the shop the other day to see what all the racket was about. I barely noticed. When there is carving to do, I concentrate hard enough that I can lose track of time and the environment.

The three-inch Sloop

A friend wanted another sign with a carving on top of the small sloops his shop builds. I do lots of signs with boats on them, and wanted to make them a bit more independent of the background. This involved coming up with a method for reinforcing the structure. Signs rest their backs on a wall so it had to be flush. The result was pleasing and seems strong:

The initial carving
reinforcement
finished carving showing the mortise

The finished sign shows the three-inch-long sloop sailing on a textured sea. You don’t see the mortice that holds the sloop onto the signboard. The sea covers that. The mast and sails are carved and separate from the body of the sloop. The reinforcement on the back is securely glued in place. I wouldn’t dare try this method if the carving were free-standing, but being that it will be mounted, it offers a much more realistic impression of a sloop sailing in a brisk breeze.

Several other jobs are in the shop at the same time, so I have plenty to occupy me.

The lead photo is a montage of shots from an Antonio Jacobson portrait of the Clippership Dreadnought. It’s my next big project, and the carving blank is already ready to go as soon as the workbench is clear enough to get carving. This is not a commission. It is an experiment. It was a studied “executive decision” to tackle this project. The Dreadnought is “local. ” She was built in Newburyport in the 1880s, and the nearby Maritime museum happened to have the Jacobson portrait on display. Able to gather enough detail, I am preparing to do some experimental carving on how I render the sails and the perspective of the hull inclined towards the viewer. This is my second attempt at this project. Not all experiments are successful. But there is no progress without a degree of risk.

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Rudder Kickers

Daily writing prompt
What bothers you and why?
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Before the pandemic, I did a round of boat shows every year as a maritime carver. It was hard work lugging stuff to and from, setting up, selling and breaking down. But It was also great fun- you spent tie with some wonderful people who were selling other maritime related goods and services. There was lots to talk about during breaks and dinners. One topic that always came up was Rudder Kickers.

What is a rudder kicker?

What’s a Rudder Kicker, you ask? It’s someone who shows up at your booth, asks thousands of questions, expresses great interest, but walks off without a sale. These are not momentary contacts; they are full-on conversations. They want to know all the details: what’s the warranty period, how was it made, how long can I use it, can I use it for (here add in the idiotic choice of the hour), and please disclose all the trade secrets on how it was made. After this, they wander on to the next booth and do it again to someone else.

Around dinner, we vendors discuss our days. Did you see that pair of lovers who should have gotten a room? What about those disruptive teens? And then, of course, we’d talk about the rudder kickers. Some of these people show up year after year at particular shows. So much so that you greet them, ” and how are you doing this year, Mr. Jones!” You are courteous. Mr. Jones might, at last, make a purchase.

Now, some rudder kickers are special. At one show I did in Maine every spring a particular elderly gentleman showed up year after year, asking intelligent questions about carving. Over the course of years I grew to know a bit about him, and welcomed him to my booth. He was a retired trade carver who’d trained in European shops. He was welcome to sit with me in the booth and talk for a half hour before he moved on.

There is a lot more going on at a show than meets the consumer’s eye.

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Judy’s Number Game -#81

And the number is – 203:

Louis Charpentier’s Buttons
looking down the gardem
A favorite cartoon
a carved birchwood bowl
  • Louis Charpentier was a Fantastic carver. He worked in the plastics industry, making the original models for the molds. If you wear buttons, you probably have worn some of his. He crafted thousands of them. The card shown here has only a tiny fraction on it.
  • From a few years ago a view down the length of my garden.
  • One of my favorite cartoons.
  • A birchwood bowl is being finished. At this point,
  • I am using specially shaped scrapers to smooth the inside.
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The Truth. The Whole Truth

eagle weathervane
Daily writing prompt
List 10 things you know to be absolutely certain.
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Absolute certainty about a thing does not make it accurate. Humans are fallible. And we all know people who continue to believe things contrary to truth long after the facts have smashed them in the face. On this truism are beliefs that the cheating spouse is faithful or that the moon is the home to the Lunarians.

.We then have the corruptibility of political figures. The image is of plain paper envelopes stuffed with cash going from hand to hand. Having worked in government, I can assure you that it’s more likely the cumulative effect of many situations. You receive free tickets to the theater, lunch or dinner at a nice restaurant, or”favors”. Corrupt practices start small and build. I remember visiting an office in a major urban community on the day that the Federal warrants were served on officials in an adjacent city. The fear was palpable. Are we next? Everyone was walking on eggshells.

Physical science? Flat Earthers. Do I need to say more? The Earth is, in fact, not flat.

I just love it when an author comments that ” any rational observer would see…” that this or that was so or not so. Humans can act rational, but not always, and not consistently.

Now, into the world of woodcarving. I’ve had students come to me from other instructors insisting that wood must be sawn on the quarter ( quarter sawn) to be carved. They become agitated when I select a random piece of fine and start carving a boat portrait. Quarter-sawn wood is nice. But I maintain that you can’t always get what you want. You should accommodate yourself ( within limits) to working with what you can get.

My favorite stupidity is that immigrants, or those people from this or that place, are lazy. As an anthropologist, I’ve worked in immigrant communities. Based on what I’ve seen, it’s the other way around. The immigrants work long hours at some of the worst jobs, send their kids to school, and generally have hyperactive work ethics. It’s the native born who are the slackers.

People are the same wherever you go. For this one, I love my favorite Margaret Mead quote: “Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.” There is a huge amount of variation, but we are one species. Not as similar as dolls on the toy store rack, but one species.

The government is responsive to the needs of the people. Another Margaret Mead quote: “The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.”

Flashes of brilliant insight fuel technological advances. BS, or as Thomas A. Edison put it, “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” 

Finally, WE have a tendency to want to make things easier on our kids than we had it. This is fine in many areas. Giving them adequate nutrition, healthcare and such all make good sense. But there is something in struggle, opposition, and conflict that adds to their life experience. And to close this out, here is my final bit of folk wisdom: “Calm seas never made a skillful sailor.”

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Choices, Choices!

Daily writing prompt
Are you seeking security or adventure?
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Adventure? I’ve had loads of it. Security? Adventure taught me several things, but the single most important one is that feelings of security are untrustworthy.

Adventure

Now, as I think about that, I recall my nighttime security regime. Check windows and doors to ensure that everything is latched or locked. This came from growing up in New York City, where most apartment doors had an elite selection of bars, locks, and chains. Break-ins, home invasions, and petty theft were always possibilities, even in secure buildings and neighborhoods.

Security while on the road or in coffeehouses depended on many things, but people on alcohol, drugs, or high on just plain meanness topped the list. A partial list of things to do to avoid trouble? Here it is:

  • You never wore your wallet in the back pocket, always a front one.
  • You sat with your back to the wall, preferably watching the door
  • If you trusted, you verified
  • At the first sounds of loud arguments you checked to see where the exits where
  • In some choice places, you watched the barkeep carefully
  • Always remember the guitar comes first.

Put simply, adventure was great, but came with lots of peril. I’ve reached the point where the fun is enjoyable but I could do without the risks.

Kissing Frogs

After my reform from wayward travel and adventure, I was much more interested in emotional security. One could say that I was hungry for it. Seeking it was an adventure in itself. To twist an old saying, ” You kiss a lot of frogs before you find a princess”. I can attest to the truth of the statement. Frog breath. Yeccch!

I like things the way they are, I have relative security, and I have my princess. I consider myself fortunate and blessed that things turned out as they did.

My advice is that both security and adventure can be overrated. Seeking a balance between the two paths is the way to go; says he who couldn’t follow his own advice.

Ahhhh. As Augustine said, ” It was wicked, but I loved it.”

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Sit Down Dinner

Daily writing prompt
If you could host a dinner and anyone you invite was sure to come, who would you invite?
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No. No, and No! It’s who you don’t invite. I mean if you’re going to invite your Folkie friends who still wear their old “Free the Treadmore Seven” T-shirts, and sport flea infested long white beards you simply can’t invite Aunt Gracie. Gracie is a DAR snob( Daughters of the American Revolution for you peons who aren’t up on your Society Page News). She’d criticize their tea drinking technique – the pinky isn’t raised! And they’ll respond with a smirk that it’s not the sort of tea they’re used to. The knock-down and drag-out will be colossal. Then, if you’ve invited cousin Tony, from Queens, he’ll start taking bets on who wins. Gracie has a fearsome left hook.

It would be even worse if you hosted this as a sort of garden party at The Country Club. Think of the setting: tables on the lawn in the dappled sunlight of late afternoon. The Better Quality people gather round as the mud wrestling starts in the nearby pond, as the relatives pile on to pull Gracie from the scrimmage—the dive into the pond, the mud, the mire.

Later on you’ll calculate your share of the take with Tony, and pray that it exceeds the damages done to the property.

No. Better to take this bunch out to a fast-casual restaurant and split the check.

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The Three-Inch Sloop

Stream of Consciousness Saturday – July 12, 2025

I’ve been shaving curls of wood off a carving most of the day. A friend asked me to make him a copy of a sign I did on a whim for him years ago. Expecting it to be a one-up gift, I took no measurements. Then, a few weeks ago, he asked for another one. Since I do not have the original, I scaled the work form the text used. That file wound up being saved.

There is a good reason why that text is a computer file. I can’t carve minuscule lettering anymore—any lettering under an inch I do on my Epilog laser. I’ll still do larger lettering manually, but not the small stuff. This is the result of having had a hole in my retina repaired a few years ago. My vision was saved, but I already had scarring in the retina, and the vision in that eye is not perfect.

This has led to an interesting approach to carving. Most of my work us still hand carved, but when small lettering is concerned I do it on the laser. The Laser is precise, Allows for many fonts and is easy to set up and run. Here is an example:

carved banner

The machine does the lettering, but the banner itself is hand-carved

So today I was carving the tiny three-inch-long Town Class sloop that will go on top of the laser-carved lettering. Yeah, I know- I can carve a three-inch sloop but not the lettering.

In one way, I am utilizing technology to allow me to continue carving. It handles the small letters, I do the other work – carving a three-inch sloop in miniature is challenging.

Designs

Here is a gallery of things I’ve done combining the laser and hand-carved work. It includes the original sign for my friend.

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Coastal Cooking- Cod a la muffler

If you’ve been snowmobiling, you may have run into the little steel pans that look like old-fashioned mess kits. You pop them on your exhaust manifold, and it warms up your hot dogs. Well, hot dogs and beans ( Burnham and Morril or homemade) are too much a New England tradition to ruin them that way. Buried in a beanpot over a slow-cooking bed of coals…but that’s another story. Cod à la muffler was a different sort of gourmet meal available only on a lobster boat.

Cod a la muffler

One day, I was out lobstering with Lowell, and a lovely cod came up in one of the pots. He promptly pulled out the tin foil. Then he gutted the cod and put it onto the long upright muffler that rose from the engine compartment. He looked at me and said, “Lunch will be served soon!”

While the cod cooked, we continued pulling lobster traps, measuring the catch, and replacing bait when needed. When the cod was done, out came some silverware and plates. Evidently, this was a regular occurrence. The cod was delicious and straightforward; you could hardly expect fresher seafood.

About a month later, I was out with someone else who prepared the fish with more than salt and pepper. It was a feast with several courses prepared by compartmentalizing the fish, veggies, and condiments to cook together. When I asked if he ever tried steaming lobster on the pipe, he looked at me as if I were crazy and told me, ” I don’t eat the darn bugs at all. That’s for people from away.” Meaning people like me.

So the next time you are out boating, and see a wad of aluminum foil on the lobster boat muffler, it’s not a weird sort of muffler bandage. It’s lunch.

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Ticket Please!

Daily writing prompt
What do you think gets better with age?
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A friend of mine always said that in life, you could either be a passenger or drive the train. When you are young, you are pretty much a passenger; you need to learn the ways of the world, grow up, and hopefully learn to drive your life in the direction you want to go in.

For me, serendipity, fortune, or providence played an important role. It pulled me back when my poor train driving skills threatened to put us off the rails. I had treated caution with disdain. On the advice of friends, I went into therapy and returned to school. I needed to learn new skills and perspectives. Did I stop adventuring? No, but I learned caution. I learned not to rush into every bad opportunity just because it was alluring.

Now I know people who went through processes similar to mine. One found religion. One denied the wild side entirely. And one seemed to be redeemed, but slipped back across the border quietly one night, and was lost.

I refused to forget where I had come from in life. It is a prologue to the life I currently lead. I am honest about that background and view it as a sort of pool of credit that I can draw upon in need.

Driving the train doesn’t so much get easier; it just becomes less of a ride to a potential train wreck waiting to happen and more of an adventure. As you mature, you bring more and better resources to the job – if you pay attention.

Louis N. Carreras, Woodcarver

Authentic Nautical Accessories, and Custom Furnishings

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