This Carving took me 5 YEARS

It took me five years to attempt carving this sculpture, and the reason why, honestly, is kind of embarrassing. All right, let's get right into it. I'm carving a moose and I want to use this piece of walnut burl so I can have a similar aesthetic to this rhino that I carved a couple years ago, but this piece of walnut is just too small and I want more wood than epoxy in this sculpture. So instead, I'm going to try to use this slab of bastone walnut that I've had in my shop for three years now. The plan is to cut this into three sections, glue them up, and then carve a live edge into the top side of them. It's kind of hard to explain, so why don't I just show you. I don't have a piece of walnut thick enough to get the width of the moose that I need, so I'm going to try something I've never tried before. I'm going to laminate three slabs and try to seamlessly blend them so I get the thickness I need for this moose. This walnut is absolutely beautiful. It might be one of the prettiest pieces of wood I've ever worked with. This is called bastone walnut. It is super dense. It's talled out my machines multiple times and here you can see the three pieces cut and now I want to make a live edge on the top section. In order to do this, I'm going to scribe a pencil mark on the inside section, take it to the bandsaw to get the majority of it cut off, and then go into my carving discs and bits to make it as natural looking as possible. Now that I think about it, both end caps do have that natural live edge. The only piece that I'm actually carving is the middle section, so this is basically 66% natural live edge. I'm pretty sure if this were in a grocery store, it could be considered organic live edge. All right, let's glue these slabs up. I honestly didn't know how this was going to turn out. I've never done anything like this before and after a little bit of carving and sanding, this thing looks like one solid block, which is exactly what I'm going for. I'm super happy with how it's looking right now. All that's left to do is add some total boat penetrating epoxy to seal this thing up before the main epoxy pour. The next day, I scuff up the top with a little scotch brite pad to make sure I have a good bond with the main epoxy pour. I made a little melamine mold off-camera, and if you're new to this channel and wondering why I'm doing this in a refrigerator, it's all about temperature control, and I've had many years experimenting and kind of perfecting this formula that I use. And if you're interested, I have a whole video on that that I did a couple years ago. I will put a card up top. I'm using Total Boat Dickset Fathom for this pour, and I do have a discount code and link in the description if you want to use this or any of Total Boat's products. I want this mousse to have a little extra shimmer, so I add some metallic flake, and I hope that just gives it a little more depth to the final piece. And I hate it. I think I added way too much metallic flake. It is way too sparkly for my liking. So I went out, I got a little pool filter here, and I'm trying to filter out the metallic flakes. That is definitely not working. So then I went out, I got this mesh bag, and I'm thinking, all right, maybe the wider holes will kind of soak up these metallic flakes, but that was also a big failure. So I cut my losses, and I just swirled around the flakes, and we're going to just hope for the best. All right, while this epoxy cures, let's get started on these antlers. Okay, you may be wondering, why have I taken five years to do an animal with antlers? Let me try and explain. For a single antler of this size, I need to use a material as big and as thick as this box, and that's because the side profile of the antler is just that thick, and that means that there's going to be a ton of waste and just scrapped material. I need to make a block of wood this big in order to carve away probably 95% of it to get these antlers. Now, aside from that, why this is actually difficult? My process in carving is really two main steps that get me 80% of the way there, and I'll use this bear as an example. This bear is a side profile, so if this were the block of wood, I would put my template here, and I would cut this side profile. So from that block, I have with one cut on the bandsaw, I have this cut out, and then my next step is to actually do the width of the bear, and I would then cut that out. With those two cuts, you have a very good shape of the animal you're trying to create. With antlers, that is not the case. I have the top view right here, which I am going to cut using the same method, but where antlers differ is they splay out all different angles. So now I can't create a side view of the antlers, and this is really difficult for me because I am a template kind of guy. I have to use my templates. I haven't done a single carving without using a template. This is the very first time I'm going to try it, and I hope it works out. So let's go make a block of this size and get to it. I originally wanted to make the antlers out of a different material. Here's some beautiful cottonwood, but look at how thin this is. So I would need probably three stacks of this piece of wood. I also have this beautiful maple burl here, but I just can't justify wasting 95% of this beautiful piece of wood. So I decided I'm going to carve these out of the same material that the rest of the moose is carved out of. I'm using another little cut of Bastogne walnut, and we're going to make the antlers match the body. I've been carving these wooden epoxy sculptures for around five years now, and I've always been afraid to carve an animal with antlers until now. In the past, I've been too embarrassed to show you guys my failures. I've learned that there's no need to get embarrassed, and in fact almost everything I've learned and grown from comes from failing at it first. And that's why in this video I'm going to show you every single mistake I make along the way. And it turns out there's going to be a lot of mistakes on this moose. The sculpture will be listed for sale, and I need your guys's help. If you own or know someone who owns or runs an art gallery that fits my style, please send me an email. I'd love to place a few of my sculptures in a gallery, and I'll put a link in my description, or you can just head over to my website and contact me directly through there. Thanks guys. And so far so good. I'm just taking off a little bit of material at a time, working slow, kind of cupping this shape. Actually, more of like a bowl. I'm kind of bowling this shape out, and that's what antlers are. It's basically like a little half bowl of spikes. A spiky half bowl. Anyways, let's get back to finishing these things out. And I wasn't kidding when I said I would carve out pretty much 95% of that block. Just look at the amount of dust that's just caked up everywhere in my shop. And speaking of dirty, not only is my shop a mess, but with two little ones, so is my house. Which is why I'm excited to introduce today's sponsor, Narwhal, and their new Frio Z10 Ultra Smart Cleaning System. This thing is seriously impressive. It has dual cameras and AI chips that allow flawless obstacle avoidance. Yes, that even means my kids' toys and even wires. Because of this, it never gets stuck. Almost as if it's got a mind of its own and even a pair of eyes. Oh, who's been a good Narwhal? Anyways, it doesn't just vacuum. It mops too. Yes, you heard that right. It mops. The Frio Z10 Ultra has a deep cleaning system with extendable mops so it can reach tight corners and edges around the house with zero effort. The base station is sleek, fully automated with hot water self-cleaning, and 120-day auto dust emptying. And best of all for me, it's ultra quiet, which means I can edit these videos and record voiceovers while it's running without hearing it at all. My family loves this thing, and if you want to check it out for yourself, hit the link in the description. Thanks, Narwhal. Oh, who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? All right, let's get back to finishing up these antlers. There is a ton of sanding that needs to be done on these. There's just so many different little points and small areas that have to be sanded. This took me a full day of sanding for each antler. And now that this antler is done, I'm loving the way it looks. Let's go ahead and finish the second one. All right, it's been four days. The epoxy is fully cured. Now it's time to open this thing up and see what it looks like. This thing is a perfect pour. There are no bubbles, no imperfections. This thing is as clear as it could possibly be, and I'm super excited to see what this thing looks like when it's all polished up and finished. Now that the profile view is all cut out, it's time to trace on the overhead view and then trim up the width of this moose. And like I was explaining earlier, once I have this top view cut out, as well as the profile view, I have this moose shape basically roughed out. And from there, it's all about looking at reference images and really just rounding the corners. Once I round these corners, the shape of the moose really starts to come together. Hey guys, Editor Blake here, back in my closet doing this here voiceover. I have a goal of reaching 1 million subscribers. I'm a long ways away from that right now, but each and every one of you can help me reach my goal. So if you haven't already, and you like this video, you like my content, please consider subscribing. All right, see you later. Carving is one messy situation. It'd be one thing if it was just sawdust. Sawdust kind of just falls off you and falls on the floor, but epoxy dust is statically charged and it sticks to everything, including my own arms. So if you have any plans of carving epoxy anytime soon, do yourself a favor. Wear some long sleeves or wear like a paint suit and definitely wear a good respirator because, like I said, it'll get everywhere. Right now, looking at this sculpture, this does not look like a moose. It kind of looks like a howling wolf to me and, you know, I just gotta trust the process, use my templates, use all my picture references, and just try and make this more moose-like than wolf-like. Okay, we have a pretty big problem here. The ears are way too small. I actually think I made this mistake on the bandsaw initially. The problem with subtraction carving like this is I can't simply glue more pieces on here and make them bigger. I can't pour more epoxy. It's not going to blend. It's not going to match the epoxy that's already cured on here. So there's really nothing I can do but try and make them look a little bigger and then have the antlers really kind of hide them and really be the focal point. So I'm hoping that those antlers could actually hide some of my mistakes. So we're going to go with that and let's get back to it. And this wasn't part of the plan. Off-camera, I was doing a little bit of chainsaw work and it just caught an edge and completely fractured this leg. Completely tore it off and luckily, you know, I've experienced this quite a few times in previous sculptures as some of you may have seen already if you've seen my previous videos. And it's really a pretty easy fix. Just a little bit of five-minute epoxy, mix it with some sawdust to get a perfect color match and glue it back together and you'll never know it was broken in the first place. All right, we have another problem. Take a look at the legs. This leg right here is a lot thinner than the others. Right now, I do like the thicker looking legs but if you actually look at my rendering here, come on, focus, focus, focus, look at how skinny those legs are. So this does give me hope that I could actually thin out all of the legs quite a bit because this moose has really skinny legs. So right now, they are too thick. So I'm thinking if I can thin them all down, then I could really salvage couple months ago? I made these T-Rex tooth bottle openers that you guys absolutely loved. So with the off cuts of this moose, I decided to make some more but this time with Bastogne walnut. This time around, I definitely don't have as many off cuts as that T-Rex sculpture I have. I think 13 of these Bastogne walnut teeth for you guys. And I just love being able to use these little scrap pieces that would just be thrown away or saved for, let's be honest, probably up to 10 years and never be used again. I just love being able to use these and put them to good use and also share with you guys because these are functional pieces of art. And also, it's a life-size T-Rex tooth. To see and hold one of these in your hand is just crazy, thinking that this was actually the size of a T-Rex tooth. If you're interested in purchasing one of these, they will be up on my website. Again, link in the description or just head directly to my website. I have 13 of them and I do expect they will go pretty quick. All right, let's get back to sanding this moose. And I came pretty close to forgetting about the eyes but don't worry, I'm going to put them in right now. And while we're on the topic of eyes, let's chat briefly about the difficulty of them. You may think that animals have perfectly round eyes. Well, the actual eyeball is round but they have the eyelids that go around that round surface. Which means I can't use just a simple spherical cutter head to put in these eyes. I have to do all of them by hand which makes it extremely difficult. And once the eyes are in, it's time for even more sanding. I'm going to wet sand the epoxy portion of the sculpture up to 7,000 grit to have a perfectly transparent look to this. At least that's what I hope. And then I also need to narrow down the base of these antlers. They were way too thick and I did that on purpose because I didn't know what size I needed until I finished the actual carving. And I definitely need to make these things a little bit smaller. And putting on these antlers is one of the most difficult parts of this entire process. I have 5-minute epoxy here and I'm just trying to hold it in place but I just don't have steady enough hands to hold it there. It's actually not really 5-minute epoxy, it's more like 15-minute epoxy and it did not work. So then I sanded all that off, cleaned everything up, did it again, but this time I put CA glue on the outside just to clamp it in place as I could let that epoxy cure perfectly without me moving it around. Now if this were an all wood portion of the sculpture, it would be easy. I'd make a dowel and I would just insert those and it'd be super strong. But because the head is epoxy, any dowel that I put in there you would see through the epoxy and that's something that I just can't have. So this has to be just an epoxy bond to make sure that I don't lose any clarity in the head of this moose. All right, we have success. The antlers are attached and now all that's left to do is apply some finish. Or so I thought. I hate how the eyes look. I was hoping the finish would actually blend them in more but that was just not the case. For a lot of these epoxy sculptures, sharp cuts or angles really stick out because they cause different reflections in that clear epoxy. That's why a lot of my sculptures you see in the past actually don't have the eyes carved out. There's something I really like about not having all the details of the eyes and even details of the full moose. It makes kind of a mystic look to these sculptures. Either that or that's what I just keep telling myself because I really just suck at carving the eyes. Either way, I really like the look of this new moose non-eyes and would love to hear what you guys think. So let me know down in the comments. Eyes or no eyes? This has taken me five years to attempt a sculpture like this and I'm so glad I did because it has got to be one of my favorite sculptures I've ever done. That's just a box and a bear. Let's roll the reveal.