Davinci Project -final Chapter- new photos 5/14/08

[ragiarn]

I Finished the left side of the Davinci Horse. I showed the head last week and this week I completed the neck, shoulder, body, fore and hind legs and tail. What you see is preliminary contouring and shaping. Once all the pieces are finished there will to be some more contouring and shaping.

At the suggest of Jeff I have introduced some innovations to my Intarsia recently. I have started using some carving techniques. I purchased some carving tools and a Wecheer rotary tool.

Instead of segmenting parts of a group (i.e. shoulder), contouring them and then re-gluing them together I decided to use the carving tools to put in what I call character lines. The muscle lines of the shoulder etc.
The fore leg and hind leg are one piece (except for the hooves).

As a result I have 9 pieces on this horse instead of the approximately 20 pieces I had on the prototype for this side alone. (does not count the pieces in the head)

I have given the parts a coat of shellac to protect them from getting dirty while handling them as I finish the rest of the parts and get them ready for final assembly.

I like shellac because it can be used as a base coat and later either oil based or water based finish coatings can be applied over it. It is both lipophilic and hydrophilic.

The woods in the project are Wenge (eyes, mane and tail) Aspen (white on the head), Mahogony,(body) and Ironwood (hooves)

Before sanding the Mahogany was a pale red but now it seems to have taken more of a blonde color. I hope with time it will revert to the reddish hue.
Doc

[Trout]

I started off by looking at the pictures first and the first thing I thought of is WOW...
that's right up there with the quality of work that we see from Jeff...

nice job...it looks great.

Trout

[CanadianScroller]

A real renaissance man! well done