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.
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