I am in Savannah, GA working with master furniture maker and restorer, Greg Guenther (www.guentherwoodgroup.com). He is making a new altar table to match an existing one, and I am going to be carving the details. There will be 2 large capitals, egg and dart going around the entire table, and some leaf molding at the column base.
Today I worked mainly on getting the details carved for one side of the capital, so when I go back home tomorrow I can work on all 4 sides of 2 capitals, about 20 ft of egg and dart (over 200 of them!) and about 4 ft of simple leaf molding that will go around the base of the column. We went to the church today to take photos and get as many measurements and profiles as possible (photos above show us measuring with profile gauges and photos of original carvings). It would definitely be much easier if I had the capitals in front of me when I carve, but no such luck in this case. The originals are a cast stone, and very attached to the altar table. They aren’t going anywhere. We’ll go back over to the church tomorrow and put my first attempt up to the original to see how closely it matches. Many things to consider and many contoured shapes.
Tomorrow I will also make sure I am on the right track with the design of the egg and dart and leaf molding. Then when I get home, I’ve got a lot of work to do! I need to finish it within 1-1/2 weeks, along with lots of other work happening (and getting the video web site set up). No rest for the weary! But having fun doing it!
Speaking of the video web site, I’m going to video the process of carving this capital (once I get it to an efficient process and correct design) as one of the projects. I’ll also show how to make the leaf molding (already have one for the egg and dart). So basically, when I have a job that I am working on, the video recorder is running – dogs barking, roosters crowing, telephone ringing – most of which I will attempt to edit out. But these videos will be as real as life! Pimples and all!
Busy is good, so they say. When do we get to sign up for video web site? Can’t wait!
My aim is for having it fully available to all by early July. I will be using May as a test run (and also finishing editing all videos) and will be limiting it to certain people testing and proofing it.
Phew! What a neat job!
20 feet of E&D? Hmmm, that sounds like about 6 weeks work. 🙂
I’m going to be in production mode. Get out of my way!
Please don’t edit out the dogs, roosters, or even the phone. They add to the videos by showing your everyday life.