3 hours Hei Matau

This summer, I had some spare time while at home with my parents, and I wanted to see how much time it would take to make a bone-carved pendant. So, I picked one of my last bone blanks, and started drawing on it a simple shape. After some tries, I decided for a quite simple hei matau. I know, I’ve already posted about a Hei Matau in this blog… But here, the idea is a different :).

I then cut the blank with a jeweler handsaw (ending with some small scraps I’ll try to use in future projects, and used files to straighten up the borders (and sandpaper to clean the surface). I did the final shaping of the piece, rounding of the bottom and definition of  the edges using again files and sandpaper. At the end, I polished it. Polishing was the only step in which I’ve used the rotary tool to buff the surface with polishing compound, all the rest has been handmade.

     

While I was working, I documented the process in real-time with these instagram photos :), but i forgot to take a phot of the polished piece…

Doing all the steps at a good pace, but without rushing it, from drawing (correctly) the design to the end of polishing was a bit more than 3 hours… Let us say 15-20 minutes drawing the design (different tries), half an hour cutting (including the change of a broken blade), plus another 20-30 minutes refining the edges. One hour shaping edges and round areas and another hour polishing.

Not bad, but I can still improve…