What power carver to get!

[Les Symonds]

I'm going to buy a power carver for roughing out some shapes. This has come about after making a couple of Christmas trees for my shop display...see picture below....

...the trees stand about 2ft tall (60cm) and were turned from a single sycamore log. Once I'd got the tree shape, I chain-sawed it down from top to bottom, making two tree shapes, then slipped LED lights into it from behind, through 5mm holes drilled through the branches.....BUT..... the cable on the lights was only 7cm between each LED, so it wasn't long enough to poke the LEDs through the holes. The result was that I had to hollow the back of the trees out, which took an eternity. I've had loads of enquiries from customers wanting to buy these, but I made them purely for display, so next year I'll get a batch made ready for the festive season.

My question, then, is simple....what sort of power carver is going to cope with hacking away sycamore to hollow out the tree-backs? The finish is not critical, as the back of each tree will have a thin plywood blanking panel fitted over the hollow to conceal all the cables to the lights, thus all the carving work will be permanently sealed away.

Any thoughts on this will be welcome....Les

[georg]

   May I suggest Les  for the job you intend to do  the two in the photo, although they are about £100 a time , they are very
   versatile for other jobs. Machine Mart do a cheep chain saw disc, a bit vicious you would need variable speed to control.
   I have found the smaller power carvers a bit slow and weak for the job you are doing.
   Regards Tony

   

[Les Symonds]

Thanks Tony.....would I be right in thinking that the Arbortech disc does the heavy cutting, whereas the other (red) disc is more for finishing?

Les

[Derek]

Why go to the expense unless you want it for other jobs. Can't you turn 5 different cones that will lock together when complete glue along with the trunk and base and the split in half. Hope that makes sense

[Les Symonds]

Why go to the expense unless you want it for other jobs. Can't you turn 5 different cones that will lock together when complete glue along with the trunk and base and the split in half. Hope that makes sense

Hi Derek.....your explanation of the process makes perfect sense, but I fear that the amount of labour involved would reflect too heavily on the price that I'd have to ask for them. If I make 20 of these, the Arbortech cutter will add £5 to each tree......which is going to be selling for around the £60 mark. Financially, the cutter makes better sense to me than the extra labour involved in the segmented approach. One other consideration is that I've got a shed-load of sycamore logs with rather more 'natural features' in them than most people like, so their use for decorative Christmas trees is ideal.
Thanks for the suggestion....Les

[georg]

   Les the Black Arbortech is a carbide planer that moves wood very fast , The Red one is about equal to 10grit sandpaper
   but can clog on fluffy woods. they also  do a medium and finer one. They are both 4" and fit in a normal hand grinder.
   I got these from one of Yandles shows.
   Regards Tony

   Ps   The black one leaves a smooth finish

[BrianH]

I have used two sizes of chainsaw discs (I think one of them is called Lancelot). They certainly remove wood but the finish is.... well chainsaw! I power them with a single speed angle grinder and have never found them diffecult to control, given that you offer them the same repect as a chainsaw.
all the best
Brian

[Tony Kairo]

Can't you just use a router to hollow out the back?

[Les Symonds]

Can't you just use a router to hollow out the back?

In a word...'No'

A fuller explanation as to why not.....the hollowing of the lowest section of the tree is as much as 4" deep....the tree came out of a 10" log, sawn down the middle, makes it 5" thick at the thickest point of the lowest branch. I need to hollow it out to little more than 1" thick, so there's as much as 4" to hollow out.....plus the fact that the concave shape that I'm hollowing the back of the tree to, needs to reflect the convex shape that you see at the front, so every hollow goes from its full depth in the centre to zero depth at the edges......I can't imagine the complexity of trying to achieve that with a router.

Thanks for the suggestion, though....Les

[Paul Hannaby]

Yandles (and others) are selling some power carving discs by Rotarex. They look quite good but I can't say I've tried them. I was thinking about getting one to try out.
Here's a link http://www.yandles.co.uk/search/rotarex#

Watch the videos that are on the product pages.

[Les Symonds]

Yandles (and others) are selling some power carving discs by Rotarex. They look quite good but I can't say I've tried them. I was thinking about getting one to try out.
Here's a link http://www.yandles.co.uk/search/rotarex#

Watch the videos that are on the product pages.

....thanks for the link, Paul....I just looked at it and am impressed by the price. It's almost worth getting one of the Rotarex Carving Disks just to see how good it is.
Les

[Bryan Milham]

Les, I'd say go with the Arbortech as well, I've got the mini and the disk is big enough for everything I've asked it to do.

[Eric Harvey]

there`s always the Axcaliberer carving disc at £52 something,or the Arbortec tufcut disc at £47 something.both on the Axminster web pages.