Teddy Bear Pirate Ship

Ye Bucket O' Scrap

Recently our neighbors invited us to their house for their son's fifth birthday party and they went all out with the pirate theme.  I don't think I could ever hope to be that organized and creative to plan something out so well but my son and I did leave the party with pirates on the brain.  The next day, my son decided that his teddy bear's birthday was soon to occur, coincidentally on the same day as one of his grandfather's birthdays.  And, for his birthday, Teddy wanted to be a pirate.  Go figure.  For some reason I had the itch to do some carving and so I reached into the bucket o' wood scraps and pulled out some excess 2" x 2" fir and some shavings from the latest frame made out of old tongue & groove.

Beware, these be sharp!

  Ever since a friend, artist, and fellow Eagle alumnus, Michael Smith, showed me how he carved wood for his beautiful block prints, I've wanted to experiment with some hands-on carving of my own.  He told me of a great shop in Portland that carries a great beginner set of carving tools and oh, so much more.  Woodcrafters is amazing if you ever get a chance to stop in.  It's a good thing I'm on a budget some of the time or I could have spent much more time and money while there.  BTW, it's also very close to Voodoo Doughnut's east-side location.  What I did end up with, besides a frame brace that has come in very handy, was a beginner set of hand carving knives and a good slipstrop by Flexcut for sharpening the blades.  The best part was that the set of carving blades came with a handy set of bandages.  Thankfully, I've yet to use them.
     From the 2" x 2"piece of doug fir, I carved the hull of the boat and with the long slivers from the tongue & groove I carved and sanded the masts and yards.  I notched the bow to attach the bowsprit and then anchored it with wood glue.  To set the masts, I drilled holes to match the size and left them loose, with the exception of the fore-mast, so that if there were ever a naval battle and the poor ship lost a mast, it would not have to be broken out and remade.  To attach the yards, I notched the mast and yard to fit then bound it with brown string and a dab of glue to hold in place.  Finally, for the sails, I had some extra muslin leftover from may last canvas creation and cut sails out of that.  I tied them on with needle and thread but left the bottoms stays off partly because I was investing way too much work on this project and partly because I am no fan of sewing.  The only thing remaining to do now is test it in water and make a stand for it since it keeps falling over.

Sailing the high-table seas.

     In the end, my son said said Teddy would love it and that he would ride it, right between the fore-mast and main-mast.  I guess as long as he's wearing an eye patch that will be fine.