4/28/2004: Carved eggshells

Undertoad • Apr 28, 2004 1:14 pm
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Lady Sidhe sent these along and it seems they were sent to her with very little information? But they're interesting bit of craftwork and probably would qualify for our own xoxoxoBruce's dodad collection (as long as they had a good story). That's praise indeed.

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Carved from eggs? Dang, that's some detailed work.

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The subject matter they've chosen is a bit kitschy for me, but you still have to be amazed.

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glatt • Apr 28, 2004 1:16 pm
I've seen these before, but can't remember where.

They are amazing. I watched a guy in New Zealand carving designs in bone for use on neclaces. He did some pretty intricate stuff with his dremel syle tool, but nothing like this.

This has got to take a very steady hand. Impressive.
pdaoust • Apr 28, 2004 3:07 pm
you know, if you take a good hard look at those eggs, they seem to have the same colour, shape, and texture as ostrich eggs. I imagine ostrich eggs would be much easier to carve than, say, chicken egs.

But they're still spectacular nonetheless.
jdbutler • Apr 28, 2004 3:10 pm
Yeah, they're good...but can he fix Humpty?:)
AstroJetson • Apr 28, 2004 3:10 pm
They have the eggs shown

Another great site

Clearly cases of people with too much time on their hands
ladysycamore • Apr 28, 2004 5:50 pm
Wow...that's amazing!!

But, I would imagine that they would have to "harden" the shells a bit to carve without breaking. Just guessing...maybe they didn't. Nice work anyway. :D
Leah • Apr 28, 2004 6:53 pm
Pretty interesting, but not my cup of tea.
Happy Monkey • Apr 28, 2004 6:58 pm
For Leah:
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Leah • Apr 28, 2004 7:02 pm
ha ha ha very funny
Pearcie (AUS) • Apr 28, 2004 7:30 pm
Haha, nice 1 HappyMonkey.

I'm with UT on this one, nice work but couldn't they choose a more interesting subject matter, maybe a comic book hero. Yeah, I'd buy one with a big Hulk likeness carved into it.
xoxoxoBruce • Apr 28, 2004 9:00 pm
Sounds like a perfect job for a laser.;)
lhand • Apr 28, 2004 9:46 pm
Years ago, around 1975 I guess, I was working with IBM 5100 computers (pre-PCs), writing accounting software, and I did some stuff for a company that made micro sand blasters used in IC manufacturing. The owner's wife used to come in and use the machines free-hand to carve eggs like these. I wonder what tools were used to make these ones.
Pearcie (AUS) • Apr 28, 2004 9:49 pm
It's similar to a dentists drill apparently. There's some good info in the links from AstroJetson further up the page.
Lady Sidhe • Apr 28, 2004 10:22 pm
Actually, my grandfather used to raise Emus, and I have an empty emu shell....they're huge (you can make four STUFFED scrambled-egg sandwiches out of ONE), and they're a beautiful dark green. The shells are pretty thick, so if those ARE ostrich eggs, they probably wouldn't have to harden them before carving.

Sidhe
tw • Apr 29, 2004 12:11 am
Same may be possible with a laser cutter.
Elspode • Apr 29, 2004 12:47 pm
These rock, but I'm thinking you would *really* need to display them under glass, as dusting them would be somewhat problematic.

I think I've found this year's anniversary gift for the Mrs, though...