Bimota Tesi

Here is my carving of the Bimota Tesi 1D. A very rare and exclusive Italian bike with an innovative frame and front suspension set up as you can see from the photos.

What I like most about this piece is how clearly you can see the grain of the wood working throughout the block. It demonstrates that the bike is carved from a single block of wood but gets to show how lovely the wood is and how the grain flows through it.

This was carved around the same time as I was carving the Eddie Lawson carving. The bike is carved in Lime wood.The veneer used for the headlight is Birdseye Maple and the veneer for the logos on the side is Madrona Burr.

Mick Doohan, my first in-the-round carving.

This was my first fully in-the-round 3D carving, as opposed to the relief carvings I had done up until this point.

This is Mick Doohan on a '91 Honda NSR500 in classic Rothmans colours which is, in my humble opinion, one of the best paint jobs ever seen on a race bike. Mick had to climb over the front of the bike to get as much weight over the front as possible to help it steer as the Honda at the time was well known for wanting to go in a straight line. The Suzuki 500 and especially the Yamaha 500 were know for their handling but the Honda was the fastest but just didn't want to handle. This shaped the way Mick rode and produced that iconic style of his, having to muscle his bike into doing what he wanted it to do.

This was my first attempt at a realistic figure and didn't work too well. This is where I first came across all the considerations of carving in the round and the pitfalls and complications of juggling all the elements together. It is tough, but it is also so rewarding. As it was carved in pine wood, there isn't a great deal of detail but in my defence I never knew how it was going to end up or how far I could go with it. I was pleased at the time though. The painting of it with acrylic paint hid a lot of the shortcomings of the carving.

Most people who saw it at the time had no idea it was carved in wood or that I had even made it! They thought it was a cast object and that I'd bought it.

You don't have to look too hard to see how rough around the edges it is. After this, I used Lime for the next bikes and it made such a difference. This pictures below are of the next bike carving I did, Eddie Lawson on the Cagiva C591 carved in Lime and you can see how much tidier and crisper the carving is, especially in the out of the way places.

These pictures illustrate the different riding styles of Eddie and Mick.

                        

 This was carved in Pine wood, which I think isn't good wood to carve with. It doesn't hold detail very well, it is very hard to get tight straight lines as the different qualities of the dark and light grain of the wood makes it hard to cut accurately.

 The darker element of the wood is very hard and the grain can change direction around it so you can be carving a line and all of a sudden, what was going with the grain suddenly changes and becomes against the grain and so the wood tears. You then have to recut the wood to get rid of the tear. This can cause problems especially if you are doing a relief carving as you'll have to go over a lot of the carving again to get an even depth over the surface, and the more you recarve to even off the surface, the more opportunities the wood has to misbehave and change direction on you again.

  This may not be too important unless you are doing a piece where accuracy and clean surfaces are important. If you're going to paint it, it may be possible to use filler to hid some of the inconsistencies.

You can see how simple the carving of the Mick Doohan is and how the painting of it hid how simple it is. You can compare it to the Eddie Lawson pictures above and see how much better Lime is for details and crispness. It is also a much nicer looking wood and could be left unpainted and oiled whereas the Pine Mick Doohan carving doesn't really work without the paint. The great Rothmans paint scheme definitely helps raise the finished look of it as well.

Carving Carl Fogarty

Here are some of the photos of Carl Fogarty's carving from the beginning. You can compare them to the Aaron Slight carving by clicking "carving in progress" on the right hand menu.

I start with a technical drawing taken from photos of the bike. Castrol Honda were kind enough to allow me to photograph their bikes at the press launch and test days and get up close and personal with these extraordinary race bikes. The sound alone of these bikes, ticking over, warming up is amazing. V4 engines are simply the best sound in bike racing in my humble opinion and at the time these were at the cutting edge of V4 race engines on earth. Spine tingling!

 Anyway, I digress. Here is Carl making his very first appearance as a Honda WSB rider. In his hand is my 1 metre measuring stick, which I also used alongside the bikes to make sure that everything on the bikes and the riders is in relative proportion. Carl was distracted that day (hence no smile) by the foul weather scuppering the chance of getting his first ride in anger on the bike and by the constant attentions of the press. This was at the height of "Foggymania", and Carl was the hottest property in bike racing (Mick Doohan had already consolidated his dominance in GP's). Carl had just switched from the all conquering Ducati squad to take on the more temperamental but exquisite Honda RC45. The pressure to do well on the Honda was enormous but it was chucking it down with rain so it wasn't worth the risk going out just to circulate slowly. But Carl wanted to get going!

Asking him to stand around with a stick in his hand wasn't high on his list of things to do that day. He was, though, a gentleman and didn't refuse although I'm not sure he understood my somewhat vague explanation as to why I'd asked him to do it.

Here is one of my reference photos to help get good relative proportions for the bike and rider. Photos like this are very valuable in getting foot length, ankle and wrist thickness', waist and forearm measurements relative to the bike. This is vital for the visual accuracy of the piece.

So from these photos would come the technical drawing which you can see drawn onto the side of the  lime block. That is the Aaron Slight carving in the early stages in the background. On it, you can see how the various elements, wheel and swing arm, exhausts have been whittled down only provisionally. It's vital to make as much space as possible between all the components and the figure but not to cut them so close to final size as to leave the surface vulnerable to tool damage as you dig out all the little spaces in between.

In these photos, you can see that the bike is very well developed in comparison to the figure as I need to know exactly where the handlebars and footrests are in order to locate exactly where the feet and hands are. That way, I can then whittle down the limbs and make space to carry on.

So gradually all the waste wood around the limbs can be removed and the figure begins to come into focus.

This is the last of the development photos. From this point, the figure was finished and all the veneers were applied. It was then sanded smooth with wet and dry paper and finally oiled with Danish oil. Which takes us to the finished carving.....

Carl Fogarty

This is a carving of Carl Fogarty, in Lime, the companion piece of the Aaron Slight carving. Carl, for those viewers among you not familiar with him,is a legend of World Superbike racing, winning 4 World Superbike Championships as well as 3 other world championships and also held the Isle of Man outright lap record for years. I think this commission was due in no small part as a celebration of Carl riding for the team.

 Here they are, together.

You can see the difference in body positioning, as I've written about on a previous post. You may also notice the different shaped brake levers on the handle bars of the two bikes. No much of a difference admittedly but the team would notice these things (Aaron had mangled his little fingers in a crash years before so used a shorter lever so his little fingers wouldn't get snagged on it). When I'm carving identical bikes, these little details do help the sense of achievement and completion when they're handed over.

One detail I was particularly proud of was a shark with spiky teeth, wearing sunglasses,veneered onto the back of Carl's crash helmet. Difficult to see clearly in this photo, but the shark is only about 6-7mm high.

I will post some of the early stages of the Carl Fogarty carving soon.

Aaron Slight, starting from the block....

This is Aaron Slight on a Honda RC45, commissioned by the Castrol Honda World Superbike Team. Carved in lime wood.
Here is a record of the progress from a block of lime wood through to the finished piece.

Starting with a technical drawing of the bike, as I've mentioned before, I trim the profile closely, leaving a couple of millimetres spare to allow for tool damage and changes but close enough to that should I loose the drawing on the side, I won't be too far away from working out where I am.
   It is a representation of a specific bike so there is no room for error. All the elements have to fit together in order for it to be a success. As it is for the team, all the mechanics know the bike inside out and would spot mistakes immediately. No pressure then!

Where there is room for interpretation is with the rider and his position on the bike. Again, though, each rider has a particular style which is easily identifiable. Aaron, in this instance, crouches forward over his bike through turns, leading with his shoulder (very similar to GP legend Mike Doohan), putting weight over the front of the bike to help it turn. You'll be able to compare it to the companion carving of Carl Fogarty on his bike. You'll see he has a more upright style. Pictures soon.

The bike has to be carved first to get the thicknesses and component positions right. It would be disastrous to decide the position of his feet or his backside only to later on find them hovering in space. So as much of the bike is carved as I can get to before I start on the figure, but as much of the waste wood around the figure must be removed to gain access to as much of the bike as possible. It's a delicate balance between making progress and jumping the gun.

Bit by bit, all the waste wood is removed and the sculpture starts to work. The movable clamp helps to get the riders position in the right place, his helmet angle in relation to the lean able of the bike.Once the finer details of the bike have been picked out, the hands and feet can be located accurately to the handlebars and foot pegs and the arms and legs can be better defined as their position becomes more apparent.It's too easy at this stage to decide too early where the limbs are and how large they are. 

  This carving was completed long before I started using clay models to plan carvings. This is something I've only just got into doing as my work gets more ambitious or complicated and the time spent on the clay model would justify the extra time involved in the total time for a piece.

Eventually, the carving work is complete and the veneering work begins. Put simply, I dig out holes in the carving and put different colour veneers in. Unfortunately, I don't have photos of this for this carving. 

So, to the finished work. Here is how the carving turned out, veneered, sealed with danish oil and mounted on a mahogany base.

Aaron Slight on the Castrol Honda RC45 carved in Lime wood

This carving and the accompanying carving of Carl Fogarty are on display at Honda UK's race headquarters in Louth, Lincolnshire.

I'll show the carving of Carl Fogarty and some of the preparatory work soon.

Eddie Lawson, sideways.

Eddie Lawson (on the Cagiva C591), carved in lime,viewed from the side and front this time.  You can see clearly the veneers  applied to the bike. The number boards and Cagiva logo are done in Maple, Agip logo in birds eye Maple and Ebony (which is a nightmare as it blunts the knife almost immediately) and  Madrona and stained Maple for the helmet.The bike is approximately 33cm long.

At the time I began this, the Cagiva was the most beautiful race bike to ever grace a track. A few weeks after I started it, they launched the C593 which was even more beautiful, much more curvy but I had already taken off too much wood to adapt it to the new one. Still, it's a beautiful bike and it turned out well anyway.

This, if you were wondering whether I assemble these bikes out of separate pieces, is a photo of the beginning of a carving. This is the start of a carving of Aaron Slight on a Honda RC45 commissioned by the Castrol Honda World Superbike Team together with a carving of Carl Fogarty. I start with a technical drawing of the bike and dive in very cautiously from there.
I've only recently begun to sculpt in clay first before carving. Here, I just got on with it,fraught with anxiety at making fatal errors early on, which is very easy to do. Gung ho and accuracy are uneasy bedfellows

 I just get the silhouette quite close before starting on the widths. However, I leave a couple of millimetres spare to soak up damage from tools and inaccuracies early on.

I'll show you more of the stages of how it developed into the finished article (below) soon. 

Eddie Lawson carved in Lime

This is a carving of Eddie Lawson on a Cagiva C591, carved from a single piece of Limewood and inlaid with maple, redwood, myrtle and ebony on a mahogany base

I'll show more pictures of this and some of the other bikes I've carved as the blog goes on.