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The 2008 International Woodcarvers Congress

The latest issue of Woodcarvers Online Magazine has some really great photos from the 2008 International Woodcarvers Congress in Davenport, Iowa. Check out all the photos of the winning carvings, exhibits and seminars.

LIFE Photo Archive Now Hosted by Google

Google has made the LIFE photo archive available for searching. They have information about the project here . Now when you go to images.google.com you can add "source:life" to your search to find images from the LIFE archive.

Information on Iconography

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Throughout history, artists have use images to tell a story or convey some meaning. The word iconography means "image writing." For a more in depth definition, see this article on iconography at Wikipedia. Following are some sites I found that explain some of the meanings associated with artistic imagery: Christian Iconography Gravestone Motifs & Their Meanings Art Symbols Dictionary: Flowers and Plants I hope these help. Please let me know if you have some other lists that I may be helpful.

NTWG Six Flags Show

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I ran across some pictures I took at the North Texas Woodcarvers Guild show at Six Flags mall about 9 years ago. Paul Wellborn showing some very nice carving. I also got a picture of Luise Duval with her display. And (of course) Danny Reb with his carvings and carving supplies.

Extensive Flickr Woodcarving Album

Doug send me this link to an extensive Flickr album of woodcarving photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ana_sudani/sets/72157594361473412/ Take some time to enjoy over 5000 woodcarving pictures.

Clamping Devices for Carving

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Here are some of the devices that I use to secure wood while carving. First up is the end-mounted bench vise. A bench vise like this one is very useful for either directly clamping your work or for holding other clamping devices. Note the wooden jaw plates attached to this vise to prevent the metal jaws from marring the work. This is a carving arm (sometime called a carving knee.) This one is adjustable in the angle of the arm. Next to the carving arm is a long bolt with a tapered end that can be screwed into the bottom of a carving and the placed in the slot in the carving arm. A threaded handle is then used to tighten the carving to the arm. Another device that can be used to attach carving to the arm is a piece of plywood with a carriage bolt run through a counter sunk hole. the plywood platform is then screwed to the carving. This device is also clamped onto the arm using a threaded handle or even a simple flange nut with a fender washer. This works particularly well with

Carving a Bookmark

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I recently carved a couple of bookmarks. I'd like to share some aspects of the process. These particular carvings were started away from my regular workbench. I used my small set of Flexcut tools in an old laptop bag. The carving surface is a clipboard with some grip pad on it. The bag does a fairly good job of holding the chips in. Back at the regular workbench the carving is completed and the lettering is burned in. The carving will be finished with a water based Minwax stain. First a pre-stain is applied. After the pre-stain has dried for about 15 minutes, an "English Oak" colored stain is applied. The stain is allowed to dry over night and then the piece is finished with a coat of Minwax Polycrylic. This will give it a nice hard finish with a nice sheen. I often like to finish with a coat of wax, but since this is intended to go between the pages of a book, I thought it best to forgo the wax. And there you have it. The lighting in the photographs could be better,