Finishing out the hair and head I thought I would paste in a few photos. I'm trying to replicate some of the original texture here and its a learning curve .. a steep one at times. To get the hair I burned in the grooves. Once I got something like the original, I used some ground up walnut husks, dried them a few years and mixed them in alcohol. Covered the head to make it darker than the handle.
I used some red, yellow and brown powder to mix up a dye for the handle. I'm going to leave it a bit rough and thats a challenge. I keep reaching for a piece of sandpaper but I'm holding out so far.
I filed the handle but finished out with scrapers and left a bit of tooling marks on it. As a final step I am "boning" it to get a burnished surface before I oil it. I didn't use a bone I used and old steel rod I have around here. It crushes the fibers on the surface and gives it a different feel. I might do that to the ball but I am afraid of making it a 21st century model.
Any further interest you can see some other shots in the photo gallery danmart77 under carving stuff.
later
dan
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