Dragons, Novice mistake. Oh no.

[Marcus C.]

Hi all.  

My brother saw the pendants I made for my mum and sister and he asked me for a dragon.

They are not my designs, but just part of my trail and error to learn. My brother is quite good with a pencil 

and is drawing up some things for me to try. That why I don't need to copy images from the net.

Anyway massive novice error. The dragon with the wings, I was happy with where I`d gotten and was sanding `n` singing `n` sanding very happily.

It still has a bit of a curve in the bone and moving it around in my vice to get at different angles. Slightly over tightened and crack, crack.

I`d put the whole piece in the vice instead of just the edge and with the curve in the bone, something had to give. All the time that went into it

I didn`t fell like remaking it, I made something a little simpler. Now grey grit from the sand paper is in the crack on the front of the piece,

Anything I can do?

I guess everyone has had their novice error, or brain fade. If anyone has any mistakes or simple errors that could be avoided I`d like to hear them.

[Janel]

You have learned a hard lesson and I am sorry for the injury to the piece you have worked on.  You could do what some cultures do for precious pottery, by filling in the crack with a gold mixture.  I do not know the technique's materials, but perhaps you have seen this sort of thing. 

In the future I recommend that you learn how to hold the piece in your hand and brace it against a leather sand bag.   Or, my favorite because of its little bit of stickyness, a material that is used to stick posters to walls.  Either technique is performed on the end of my carving peg, which varies between carvers.

 

Carving peg:

 

An old image of the peg with the poster-tacky-sticky-stuff on the end.  Using that stuff reduces the strain on the holding hand, and provides a gentle support to the materials being carved on it. 

 

The sand bag can be seen just under this piece

 

Good wishes to you as you continue to learn!

Janel

 

 

[Ed Twilbeck]

With wood I have taken some sanding dust ,the finer the better, and mix with some glue , with wood a good wood glue works well ,, with  bone I don't know what glue you use. I try to have almost twice the amount of sand dust that I think I will need  mix with glue to a wet putty looking mixture, some times I will add a drop or 2 of water, coat both pieces with the mixture and put them together and remove the squeez out and fill in all cracks chips, and  after glue cures , dries,  sand,or scrape smooth. I don't have any pics to show ,but would be glad to take some and show.