Ringette Ravens

[Frank Pellow]

(part 1 of 3)

For those of you who might not know, Ringette is a very fast team game played on ice, mostly by girls and women. Here is a link to the Wikipedia article that describes the sport: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringette

Ringette is at the same time very similar to ice hockey and very different from ice hockey.

Two of my granddaughters have been playing ringette for the last several years and I have gotten to really appreciate the skills and speed necessary to do well at the sport.

My granddaughters play for a club who's teams are known as the Ravens. I have just completed a carving I call ‘Ringette Ravens’ that I am going to give to one of my granddaughters for her birthday. The carving shares a frame with a photo of her just about to score a goal.

Here is a photo of ‘Ringette Ravens’:

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I borrowed much of the design of the two ravens in the carving from carvings done by Harvey John, a native carver based on Vancouver Island. Both my granddaughter ringette players, have the number 12 and that inspired my design. As you can see, the colours in the carving are consistent with the Raven’s team colours, the colour of my grandaughter’s stick, and the colour of the ring.

 

[Frank Pellow]

(part 2 of 3)

Following is a step by step description of creation of ‘Ringette Ravens’:

The wood for the carving is British Columbia yellow cedar. I sliced it thinly on my bandsaw (down to 1 centimetre thick) then glued this to a 1 centimetre thick Baltic birch plywood panel. The resulting laminated board is quite resistant to warping.

I drew several different conceptual designs over the period of a month. Finally I chose this one:

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It took much more time for me to decide what to do compared to the time that it took to do it. Once I was happy with the design, the drawing, carving, painting, and framing took about a week’s elapsed time.  Here is photo taken with the carving underway:

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I’m using a very small Veritas chisel to carve a flat surface for the stick.

Here the carving has almost been completed:

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The completed painting was first stained with one coat of Minwax oil-based golden pecan stain which I allowed to penetrate for only a couple of minutes before wiping off the excess. Next a coat of polymerized Tung oil sealer was applied then wiped. After waiting a day, the carving was painted using acrylic paints. Here is a photo taken after this step:

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Another coat of polymerized Tung oil sealer followed by two coats of high gloss polymerized Tung oil sealer were applied.

 

[Frank Pellow]

(part 3 of 3)

I tested several different arrangements of the photo and the carving and decided to go with the carving above the photo. That having been decided, I extended to panel with a 2 centimetre thick Baltic birch plywood the height and width of the photo. I used dowels in the joint and it felt kind of weird to be (carefully) attaching my Dowelmax jig to a carving:

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I made the frame for ‘Ringette Ravens’ out of BC red cedar scrap coated with polymerized Tung oil. In the picture below, I am testing and sizing a couple of frame pieces:

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I cut a kerf into the frame to be used hold the glass that was to be placed in front of the photo:

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I didn’t want glass over the carving so, in this respect, the frame was quite unusual.

I attached the frame to the panel using thin plastic shims under the glass in order to position the frames properly:

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This meant that there would be room for both the photo and the glass. I want to be able to easily remove the photo and/or the glass should it be necessary in the future so the frame was screwed, rather than glued into place. I think that it is best to feature rather than to try to hide such hardware, therefore I used large brass screws.

In the next photo, I am sliding the photo and the glass into place:

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The final step was to secure the glass in place with a red cedar cross piece secured with two brass screws:

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[JCLP]

Very nice Frank. Have your girls ever played against the Markham Bears?

 

[wow]

Cool gift! It's obvious that a lot of work and love went into that.

Good job, grandpa.

 

[Frank Pellow]

Very nice Frank. Have your girls ever played against the Markham Bears?

Thanks.

I don't recall any games against the Markham Bears.  One of my Granddaughters is playing in Oshawa this week in the Ontario Under 12 Championships.  They played their first game and won this morning (against Oshawa).  I am about to leave to be present for their second game.  I see that there is a team from Markham in the same tournament but they are in different divisions.