My wife is going to a charity tea party which has a contest for best hat. I have this set of Chris Pye carving chisels that I bought hoping to experiment with that, so I said I would carve her a hat. Ambitious I guess. I have foiled surfboard fins, and boat stems, but this is my first time to actually carve anything. I took a solid block of mahogany, drew a circle on it, and just started chipping away. I carved it into a square piece to make it easier to clamp, then sawed it out and final shaped it.
The feathers are maple and ebony. I had to hand saw the ebony veneer thick. The maple was already a veneer. I carved contrasting quills and then split them with a tenon saw, and inserted the feather piece. I then chiseled the edges to feather them and in a few places cut "v's" to look authentic.
While le varnishing last night I knocked it off the bench and cracked a piece off. I glued it back, but a big chip was missing. I took some thick shavings from the edge of a maple board and rolled it up, and a few from the ebony and made leaves. I carved a stem and glued it up, and glued the rose on so that the leaf covered the chip left from the accident.
I screwed wed and glued a hair comb inside to make this functional to wear. The varnish is drying now due to last night's accident adding more time, and the party is at 4:00 today! Ack! I will get pics of her wearing it later. You can see in one pic I used spray-on Varathane due to the short drying time.
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