Carving Cedar 107: Second Cuts

Returning to the branch of Juniperus ashei cedar, I quickly trim away the excess wood on the last six inches. I'm not trying to make anything pretty at this point, I'm just trying to find the shape of the shaft. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll be able to produce a straight shaft. The first half was working out okay but the last part is looking less than okay. By the time I reach the tip, I'm convinced that I'm going to lose several inches off the end before I'm done.

Once I complete the first pass, I get a second wind. I start again to the base of the shaft at the top of the hilt and begin shaping in earnest. I'm still using the Dremel 407 1/2" Drum Sander, even though I've reached the softer heartwood, the innermost wood of the branch. I wind my way up the shaft, turning the wood slowly in my free hand, trying to keep an equal amount of pressure on the wood as I peel it away with the sander. Soon I'm back near the tip again.

The very tip of the wood is very frayed, as opposed to the base of the hilt, which appears frayed but is still mostly intact under the surface. I start to gently work with the tip, sanding upward and trying not to dig too deep. Instead, I make quick passes, rotating the wood a bit faster in my hand but not carelessly. By the time I'm halfway down to the heartwood, I stop to take a realistic assessment of the tip.

Indeed, the last two inches of wood at the tip is too frail. I decide to cut it off. I pop off the sanding bit and attach the cutting wheel, the same bit I used to carve the notch in the ring near the base of the hilt. I could splinter the wood if I try to cut straight through it or snap it off. I cut a ring thin around the base of the section I want to remove until there's just the tiniest amount of wood attaching the tip from the rest of the shaft.

Then I snap it off. With my hand.

The wood I'm left with looks a lot like a wand.

An ungainly wand with a shaft that's too thick near the hilt, a malformed angled ring at the top of the hilt and a grip that needs trimming. I'm still not sure about the broom-shaped section below the hilt. But all is well, because even though I'm made a lot of progress, the wand is nowhere near finished. Don't lose heart!

I spend about 30 minutes smoothing the rough wood with the sanding bit, moving it slowly back and forth along the shaft and in the shallow groove the grip. I trim back the thicker portion of the lower shaft and then sand it smooth again.

Then I break out the sandpaper. I fold a new square of the 100-grit sandpaper to smooth the shape of the entire wand, from the tip of the shaft all the way down to the broomy base of the hilt. I can see that the shaft is not entirely straight, but I let that go for now. Sanding doesn't mean the wand is finished, it just means I really need to understand what I have to do.

By the time my arms tire out from sanding, Cedar 107 no longer looks like a mangled stick I'd find on the side of the road.

The next step is to return to the original design, comparing what I intended to what I've actually created. I'm not confident in the angled ring at the top of the hilt, and the broom section below the hilt keeps poking me in the arm when I hold the wand by the grip. My back hurts from vulturing over the wood as I cut, carved and sanded. Apparently even simple designs require a lot of work.