DIY Carved Trees
While we have carved a couple of trees before, it has been a few years. Much like riding a bike I guess. After a few minutes it started to seem more familiar.
A while back I asked my sister if there was anything we could make her for Christmas. She said she always liked the carved trees on the shelf in the living room. Who knew?? I thought she would ask for a map.
I was glad I asked early cause the first thing we did was head out and cut a few pieces from a spruce tree that had blown down in the wind. Jim removed the bark and they sat above the wood stove in the workshop for more than a month to dry.
We started by screwing the log to a board from underneath. The board was clamped to the workbench.
Once secure, Jim started by creating a groove with the small grinder and below that would be the base for the tree.
Then there was a lot of material to be removed, especially from the top. This required a larger grinder.
He basically removed a lot of wood from one side, then the opposite side, and finally the last 2 sides. At this point it had a square shape, tapered towards the top.
It made a real mess in the workshop, nothing a broom can’t take care off. And Lord knows Jim could use the practice with a broom. Kidding!!
Here is the first one with the sides squared up.
With a little, actually a lot, more carving we had a tree shape.
Back to the small grinder, we started carving the “branches”.
Then Jim had a brilliant idea. Lets set the thing on fire!!
Nothing says Christmas like a black tree. Here it was after being torched.
We then sanded the tree with a sanding disk on the end of the grinder leaving the black in the grooves. You can see where we sanded in this next picture.
I’ll show you the final tree in a bit. For the other two trees we wanted to make them a little different in looks and size. I suggested we make one shorter and that is when the chainsaw came out. Overkill, maybe. Fun, definately.
The second one got the same treatment minus the torch.
No pictures were taken during the carving of the third tree except this one, working to make it tall and skinny.
Here they are all together in the workshop.
We took them in the house and applied a coat of satin Varathane spray. We found that in handling them the black from the torched tree transferred to the surface. The spray has stopped that.
Not really feeling the tall ones shape so back in the workshop we reshaped the bottom portion.
And they resprayed it. Thats better…
For a short time (a few hours) I got to enjoy them on my “tree” shelf. Then they got wrapped for Christmas.
Good bye little trees.
Later.
PS: Here’s a little video.
One Comment
Hamish Buzwah
Sure glad I found your site… Thank you