Project Information
I'll start off by saying that I like Dragons, and one that can balance on the tip of my finger is interesting enough to post as a new project.
The back story to this project started a number of years ago when I met up with a superbly talented Scrimshander, named Clay James, at an arts and crafts fair. One of the carvings that I had on display was a balancing Dragon, and it caught his attention. A quick discussion led to an exchange of my Dragon for a piece of his Scrimshaw, and we both were very happy as we took our new treasures home after the fair. Recently, Clay's Dragon somehow was damaged, so a replacement was created to take the place of the original, and this is what it looks like.
I have no idea where the original design came from, but the concept is to create the carving in such a way that the balance point is under the chin of the Dragon. This does involve being very careful as to how much wood you carve away in each area as you work towards achieving the desired balance. One hidden detail is that the leading edges of the wings, near the tips, are a bit thicker because there are some small embedded weights which help to give the Dragon a look of "that shouldn't balance".
Photos 1 and 5 show me balancing the Dragon on the point of a pin so that I could find the final balance point. Once this was determined, I inserted a short section of a pin for the Dragon to balance on (just visible in photo 4). Photos 2 and 3 show it with the pin sitting on the top of a dowel. Any breeze in the room will usually bring motion to the carving.
Photo 6 shows the 3 sections, which were cut out using a scrollsaw, prior to glue up.
The back story to this project started a number of years ago when I met up with a superbly talented Scrimshander, named Clay James, at an arts and crafts fair. One of the carvings that I had on display was a balancing Dragon, and it caught his attention. A quick discussion led to an exchange of my Dragon for a piece of his Scrimshaw, and we both were very happy as we took our new treasures home after the fair. Recently, Clay's Dragon somehow was damaged, so a replacement was created to take the place of the original, and this is what it looks like.
I have no idea where the original design came from, but the concept is to create the carving in such a way that the balance point is under the chin of the Dragon. This does involve being very careful as to how much wood you carve away in each area as you work towards achieving the desired balance. One hidden detail is that the leading edges of the wings, near the tips, are a bit thicker because there are some small embedded weights which help to give the Dragon a look of "that shouldn't balance".
Photos 1 and 5 show me balancing the Dragon on the point of a pin so that I could find the final balance point. Once this was determined, I inserted a short section of a pin for the Dragon to balance on (just visible in photo 4). Photos 2 and 3 show it with the pin sitting on the top of a dowel. Any breeze in the room will usually bring motion to the carving.
Photo 6 shows the 3 sections, which were cut out using a scrollsaw, prior to glue up.
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