The 12 days of Christmas: elephant carving day 12

Before you know it we have reached twelfth night and the completion of my charging elephant.

Reality of course is that it has actually taken me about 9 months of on and off work to complete.

elephant-front

The final finishing element has been the tusks. They are made from antler, sourced from a National Trust deer park, where they take the naturally shed antlers and sell them to a walking stick maker. I had the tips of a couple of the antler spurs, too small for use by the stick maker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

elephant-rearelephant-side

 

 

10 thoughts on “The 12 days of Christmas: elephant carving day 12”

  1. Great carving and a beautiful finish. Could you tell me what product you use to get such a subtle sheen? I’ve been carving for nearly 30 years and have tried all sorts of things but have still not found something that is completely satisfactory.

    1. Thanks Craig
      I make my own beeswax polish. If you find any do look at the label. The cheap stuff uses turpentine substitute, which doesn’t carry the beeswax as well as real turpentine.

  2. Please could you tell me a bit more about how you apply it?

    I have bought beeswax polish before but it is really hard and goes onto the cloth in lumps which take lots and lots of vigorous rubbing to get into the wood – it just doesn’t give the finish you’ve got there.

    1. No problem, think it is worth a separate post, as it is an interesting subject, but it comes down to making sure you get a smooth creamed polish rather than a hard wax. You might also have polish that isn’t 100% beeswax. Other waxes are cheaper to cut cost, but also give a harder polish. I’ll post more later.

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