[Woodcarver] Need advice carving repair (Joe D. and Ivan W. pleaserespond if possible)

[Tom Clarke]

Alex,
 
     No experience repairing carvings. On the other hand, have done
some
repairs on regular woodworking projects with splits. The one biggest 
thing I've done is to take a small drill bit and drill a hole right at
the tip, or
perhaps just past the tip, of each crack. This relieves the stress.
LET IT SIT.
After it's had a chance to stabilize for a while make your other
repairs.
 
     Remember I said a SMALL bit. It doesn't have to be big, it just
provides
a way to diffuse the stress. I've used slices/wedges of the same wood
to fill
the gaps in splits. DO NOT FORCE THEM IN, you are just taking up the 
space. Use super glue to hold them together and keep cutting smaller
slices
till the hole is mostly full. Make the new wood PROUD of the surface.
If you
must, use filler on TINY spots, you mostly want real wood but you do
NOT 
want to force the crack wider. Carve new wood to match old and stain
etc.
I haven't seen anyone make TRULY good repairs without matching the
original
wood. Perhaps on a painted piece.
 
HTH,
 
Tom (nj)   ;--)
 
  _____  

From: woodcarver-bounces at six.pairlist.net
[mailto:woodcarver-bounces at six.pairlist.net] On Behalf Of Alex Bisso
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2006 6:55 PM
To: [Woodcarver]
Subject: [Woodcarver] Need advice carving repair (Joe D. and Ivan W.
pleaserespond if possible)



I have been asked to repair a very nice carved wooden Quan Yin statue
and would like to get some advice from someone who has made similar
repairs.  The statue has developed some very serious cracks with the
starting at the base and opened up around >.   I am confident that I
can fill the cracks and reshape and refinish the carving to look good
but I would like to do it in a manner that will prevent future
cracking and I am not sure the best way to do this.

Some thoughts I have are:

1.	Put some pentacryl (?  the stuff that prevents green wood
from checking as it dries) in the cracks before filling them.  My
concern here is that the pentacryl? might prevent the fill material
from bonding to the wood.  Is this a bad idea? 

2.	Put some of the thin surper glue in the cracks before filling
them.  Would this work. 

3.	Use a filler that is a strong bonding agent as well.  I am not
sure just what might be good for this, especially for the wider
cracks.  I am considering autobody bondo, possibly mixed with a little
bit of fiberglass resin.  What other options are recommended? 

4.	Insert some wooden wedges in the cracks and secure them with
carpenters glue.  However, I am concerned that I could crack the
statue right in half trying to insert the wedges.  The main crack
probably goes at least on halfway thru the wood and there are other
cracks on the back side.  Any thoughts about this? 

5.	It would be nice if there was a way to get the cracks to close
up some before doing the filling.  I think the cracks are due from the
piece being made in a  humid, tropical climate while here in MT it is
very dry.  It does seem like the dryer it is, the worse the cracks are
 and it has been very dry here.  I am also concerned that if I got
them to close up some and then did the repair, they might open up
again later. 

6.	Drill some holes right through the statue and glue in dowel
pieces through the cracks.  My concern here is that while this might
stabilize the cracks, there are enough cracks that this might require
a lot of holes and surface damage.  While I am sure I could reshape
the surfaces where the holes are, there is an intricate patterns in
the robe/gown and it might be impossible to match that.  Any thoughts
about this ?

 

I put a few photos of the cracked statue in an album at my
picturetrail site.  The link to get the them is:

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?username=abisso
<http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?username=abisso&x=19&y=15>
&x=19&y=15

 

The statue is about 3 tall.  I am not sure what kind of wood was used
in it  I think maybe some kind of tropical mahogany.  It is not a
dense, heavy wood.

 

Any guidance that you can give me on this that is based on your first
hand experience with similar repairs would be appreciated.  Please
feel free to respond off-list to albisso at bresnan.net if desired.

 

Thanks.

ALEX

 

 

 

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