The Blocks Arrive for our Reindeer

Volunteer wood carvers have been busy for several years crafting the amazing animals based on the sponsors' desires and imaginations. You can view some of the progress at the carousel's web site: http://www.Albanybrassring.com.

After each animal is designed, the wood is ordered. Bass wood from the linden tree is used to carve the animals.

The wood arrives at the carving studio in blocks - for example, a body, neck, head, and 4 leg pieces. The large pieces are laminated blocks of wood that are rough-cut with a band saw to approximate the body parts. These are the "building blocks" that the carvers start with. The blocks for our reindeer arrived in November, 2008.















These photos show the reindeer's blocks ready to start the carving process. The legs have pegs that mount into holes in the reindeer's body. They were put in place for these photos.

The large scale drawings are mounted on the walls of the carving studio, used as guides for the carving process. Here you will see the large rendering of our reindeer, Saami.


The antlers for the reindeer have been a subject of discussion between the head carver and us. Antlers made of wood would be composed on many small pieces melded together to create the curved shape. The joins required would be potential areas for weakness.

Actual antlers would be very strong compared to wood antlers. However, actual antlers may be too sharp to use on the carousel. There is some discussion of using actual antlers as a mold to create resin antlers. Thus began our quest to find reindeer antlers for a model.

Some friends traveled to Alaska last summer, stopping to visit a friend who raised reindeer. Ta da! they brought us a "pair" of antlers. Reindeer drop their antlers every year, but the pair don't drop simultaneously. The goal is to find two antlers that look like they "match."

In December, we took the antlers to the carving studio to see how they might compare in size to the drawing. It was absolutely amazing - what a match. In the photo below, one of the carvers is holding up one of the antlers to the drawing to show the close match in size.

We're Sponsoring a Carousel Animal

The Brass Ring Carousel:
The city of Albany, Oregon is building a carousel that will include a total of 52 carved animals divided into three rings. The animals in the outer ring are called "standers" - they don't move up and down. The animals in the middle and inner ring will move up and down. They are called "jumpers."

This is going to be a very large carousel, much larger than the Salem, Oregon carousel.

Last January, 2008, we (Dick and Nancy) decided to sponsor an animal for the Brass Ring Carousel. We selected the middle ring location. To celebrate our Scandinavian heritage, we chose a Lapland reindeer. We met with the carousel staff who wanted us to provide visual images and symbols to represent our family. We asked our grand daughter, Mariah, to choose a symbol she would like to include on the reindeer. She chose the red and white woven Danish heart.

Dick requested a gnome smoking a long pipe. The Danes call the gnome a Nisseman. Dick had a pipe from his grand father that he loaned the artist, Kurt Christensen, for reference. We researched reindeer bodies, harnesses and antlers. Both family names of our grandparents - Salovaara and Splidsboel will be carved on the harness. The Danish crest will be located on the Splidsboel side of the harness and the Finnish crest will be located on the Salovaara side of the harness.

The artist, Kurt, drew the reindeer based on our input. The artist's drawings are used extensively by the carvers as they work. In spring, 2008 we signed approval of the drawings. We were on our way.

Two Danish heart symbols can be seen at the lower edge of the harness in the left photo. In the photo above left, the drawing of the Nisseman can be seen. In the photo at right above, the Nisseman is shown as it will be located behind the reindeer's harness.