Cat's Eye Carving

Latest work

Since I completed the compass rose, I am able to start working on the rest of my commissions, as you can see, I have an interesting and diverse schedule.

I am currently repairing a Ball finial, carved by my customer’s Dad, who was a stonemason at Canterbury Cathedral. Sadly the carving had been broken and the repair had failed.
I do like making good broken objects especially ones that carry great sentimental value.

I couldn’t remove the stainless steel bar from the ball end and it wasn’t a threaded bar so there wasn’t anything for the glue to grab hold of so I sawed some grooves into the surface.
I will be cutting some of the stone away from the join and filling it with lime mortar. I have cleaned the stone and will apply a lime shelter coat once I have completed the repair. This is a work in progress, I will put a photo up once I have finished this job.

I was commissioned to carve a grotesque, my customers had been to a talk at Canterbury Cathedral. After the talk, a clay model of a grotesque was brought out. The grown up children later remarked that their Dad bore an uncanny resemblance to said grotesque. They came to me to see if I could carve one as a lovely birthday surprise. I am pleased to report that they loved my carving.

I can now share the finished carving with you.

Next up is a date stone that needs to be re-carved, it was taken out of a party wall which was recently re-built. After 225 years, the stone has weathered extremely well, I believe it is Portland limestone.
I will re-draw the numbers and letters so that I can carve them back in. In between the two letters there is an interesting squiggle, by shining a light across the stone and taking a rubbing, I could identify an ampersand, I will carve it as close to the original as possible.

Last Summer, I was commissioned to re-carve a house sign. It needed to be put back up on the house between the upstairs windows. I was very pleased when my customers sent me this image, back in pride of place.

Memorials are a large part of my commission work, this one is hand carved out of a piece of Forest of Dean sandstone and measures 18 x 12 inches.

I have almost finished my current commission, a house sign in a piece of Oak, once finished, I will treat the wood, paint it, then finish with Yacht varnish.

My commission list continues to be added to, I currently have an 8 month waiting list.