This project started as a bit of a means to practice using the Dremel tool before I started taking to my bar top to inlay the irregular shaped coins and badges. As I went along though, I started hatching an idea to carve a small statue out of a piece of the Jarrah offcuts.
The design I wanted to carve was a Fairbairn Sykes fighting knife with the wings of Valkyrie surrounding it, as seen in the first photo. I started by drawing a rough outline of the design with a generous amount of wood left for a base. I then drilled holes periodically around the design and then used a jigsaw to cut it out.
Once I had the rough shape of the design, I started refining it with a coarse file.
Once I was getting pretty close to the overall profile of the design, I glued the picture to the wood and then drilled out a series of holes in areas to be removed. Following that, I used a Dremel to carefully remove the wood in between the drill holes.
The next step was to use a similar process of drilling and then using a Dremel to create the wings of the statue.
Once I was getting really close to the design I wanted it was time to do away with the power tools and start using hand files and carving tools to add some detail to the wings and dagger handle. I’ve wet the statue for the last few photos in this series to get an idea of what the jarrah will look like once it’s varnished.
There’s still a few hours of filing and sanding to finish this one off, I’ll post some images once it’s done. Cheers, dan.
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