A carved Sgian Brew

**mayberry** · 25th July 11, 03:01 PM

I hadn't done any carving for a while, so decided to practise by making a sgian brew before tackling a couple of proper sgians I had in mind.
I started with a painted wood-handled bottle-opener I had in the kitchen drawer. Mine was a Holsten brand, but many beer companies have had similar offerings. I found a photos of one online, shown here.

When I scraped the paint off mine, I saw the wood was beech. I decided to try a simple rope twist carving, so started by rounding off the corners of the handle, then applying 1/2" masking tape twisted all around the handle. I marked the lines in pencil, removed the tape, and started carving the lines down to sharp-bottomed grooves. When they were deep enough, I started rounding over the top edges of the individual strands.
Then I used sandpaper and files to smooth everything. I had intended to actually carve the fibres on each strand, mimicking a hemp or manila rope end, but saw that the grain of the beech did that for me.
Some Fiebings brown dye, with some dark brown in the grooves to accentuate the strands, and I was done, except for gluing an upholstery tack in the end to finish it off. I may replace it with a small brass fitting like a Sam Brown post. I apologise for not taking any photos of the process, but here’s the result.

**English Bloke** · 25th July 11, 03:06 PM

That's flippin' gorgeous. Can't get to your bigger pictures just yet (problem this end not yours) but I'll have another shufftie next week when I get home. I like that.