A fellow carver made me a really good deal on a full-sized carousel horse blank.
The blank is made up of eight different pieces: body, neck, head, tail, and four legs. I placed the body on a stand and temporarily attached the pieces with dowels (but no glue) so I could get pictures.
This is a reasonably large figure. The body is about 48 inches long and 13 inches wide. Horizontally, the figure is 80 inches from the extended left front foot to the right rear. Vertically, it’s 60 inches from the bottom of the left rear foot to the top of the head.
Each piece is made from multiple pieces of basswood, which were glued together and then cut out on a very large bandsaw. The body is hollow, but still pretty heavy. Getting it onto that pole was quite a trick. Next time I’ll have somebody help me with it.
The neck piece should be back about two inches. I couldn’t get it exactly into place because of the pole. It will fit correctly once I carve the neck and mane. It does seem a little odd, though, that there would be that much extra wood on the neck piece. Maybe it won’t seem so odd to me once I start carving.
The lines you see drawn on the body are the saddle and trappings that the original owner had planned to carve. I’m not too excited about that design. I’ll likely erase those lines (by lightly sanding the body) and draw the saddle and trappings that I want.
Here, you can see that the head is slanted a little bit to the right. Carousel horses very often (most often) have their heads tilted to the right because carousels turn counter-clockwise. At least, American carousels do. Carousels in Britain turn clockwise. Turning the head to the right makes for a more attractive view to passersby.
Another consequence of carousels turning counter-clockwise is that the figures were usually more highly decorated on the right side. The right (or romance) side would contain not only the saddle, bridle, and reins, but also trappings—flowers, jewels, weapons, etc. to make the figure flashier. The left (or plain) side lacked all those adornments.
This horse is the size of a second or third row horse, about 3/4 the size of an outside row horse. It’s considered a “jumper,” for the obvious reason that all four legs are off the ground. On most carousels, this type of figure would be on a pole that moves up and down as the carousel rotates.
If you look closely at the right rear leg, you can see that my friend had started to carve the it. It looks like he took a few swipes with a gouge, but that’s it. He also had attached horse shoes (actually, pony shoes) to two of the feet. I removed them because nails tend to attract water if they’re not coated, and I don’t want the feet to rot before I get around to carving this thing.
You probably can’t see it in this picture, but the tail actually rubs against the right rear leg. The tail is somewhat fragile, and on working carousels would get a lot of abuse. On many carousel figures, the tail is attached to the right rear leg with a dowel in order to relieve stress on where the tail is attached to the body. That additional strength prevents the tail from breaking off and perhaps being stolen as a souvenir.
It’ll be quite a while before I start carving this figure. First, I have to finish my Hundred Birds Project. I also have to learn a few things and obtain quite a few tools before I tackle this project. I do, however, have a plan.
I’ve purchased two books on carving miniature carousel horses in 1/8 scale: 1.5 inches equals one foot. Those figures will be 8 to 10 inches long, and perhaps 6 inches tall. I’ll carve a half dozen of those (at least) in order to familiarize myself with the basic horse shape and the details of carousel horses. That will also give me time to develop my drawing skills, which are sadly lacking, and improve my eye for symmetry.
Once I’m comfortable with the miniatures, I’m going to carve at least two horses in 1/3 scale. Those will be about two feet long and perhaps 18 inches tall. For them, I’ll have to glue up basswood pieces for the individual parts (body, head, neck, legs, tail), cut them out on the bandsaw, carve them individually, and then attach everything.
I need to improve my drawing in order to draw the trappings that I want. In addition, learning to draw is very much an exercise in learning to see. Something I’ve struggled with in my carving is the ability to visualize a three-dimensional object when viewing two-dimensional drawings. I’ve noticed, in the the little bit of drawing I’ve done so far, that it’s improving my ability to visualize things.
And, of course, I have to learn to paint. One of the reasons I’ve gravitated to stylized carvings like my birds, and carving things other than basswood is because I’m not comfortable with my painting ability. But a carousel horse just isn’t very exciting if it’s not painted. So I’ll be learning to paint while I’m developing my ability to carve horses.
With all that I have to learn, I figure it’ll be at least a year before I start working on this full-sized horse. It’s sure to be a fun journey, though. I can hardly wait to get started.