The following carving is a tiki head that I hollowed out with the intention of setting a light inside it so that the eyes and mouth would glow.
I had been wanting to produce a wooden tiki lantern for a while, and this particular tiki design lent itself to being hollowed out.
Tiki head lantern with candle inside
This lantern follows a more traditional Hawaiian-style tiki head, which I carved out of a log by hand with chisels.
Once I had carved the mouth to the depth that I desired the teeth width to be, the core of the log had to be bored out with a chainsaw.
I strapped the tiki down to a work bench using ratchet tie-down straps and then using a chainsaw, I bored from each end of the tiki until the tiki was hollow through. I then continued to turn the chainsaw, excavating the sides of the hole until the core of the tiki was removed completely.
This became apparent when the the chainsaw reached the edge of the teeth. I then used the chisels to punch out the last of the wood in the mouth, and within the eye sockets.
At this stage, the tiki head has been hollowed out, but the stringy fibres of wood left by the harsh excavation of the chainsaw are still present through the core of the tiki.
To remove the stringy wood fibres from the inside of the tiki, I set a fire inside the head. The fibres were quickly scorched from the hollowed core of the tiki head, this also had the effect of leaving an attractive finish to the interior of the lantern.
Using wood shavings as kindling to set a fire in the core of the tiki head to scorch off stringy wood fibres and give an attractive finish to the interior surface of the lantern.
Raw tiki head lantern carving after burning interior.
I then used a wood file to file off the remaining stubs of wood fibres inside the core of the lantern. This helped to break off any loose carbon on the surface of the interior.
I then sanded the exterior of the lantern to a smooth finish before applying stain. I built up the stain in stages, first staining the teeth in antique pine before staining the remainder of the piece in a uniform coat of antique finish stain. I then applied a darker mix to bring out the facial features.
Tiki head lantern in use.
