Guide to Carving with Tagua Nuts

I'm moving way off the paranormal with this post and moving onto my little hobby of small scale carving with the material Tagua Nut.

I began carving with the Tagua Nut and I know why my tutor at the time introduced us to carving through it, the Tagua Nut I feel is a great material for beginners to learn from.

About the Tagua Nut - The Tagua Nut comes from the Ivory nut palm found in the tropical rainforest's of South America, it has a brown outer layer and also has a little hole that can get in the way of carving, so when designing you should think about how to incorporate it. They vary in size but for the most part are the size of large plums, over time the color of the nut darkens and I've also noticed some shrinkage.

You can probably find the nut at your local woodturner shop for a few bucks each, if not they could probably ship some in, you can also order them online.




Preparation - There really isn't much, sand off the outer brown layer to reveal the ivory colored material and you're ready to go.

Tools - A lot of people use power tools such as Dremels to shape their carvings along with fine sand paper, needle files, vices and grips. I'm a hand tools man myself and use homemade tools for my shaping.



How to make the Tool - The hand tools I use I made myself, they comprise of a hard tool grade steel (Cobalt Super Blank Stock, most probably), epoxy glue and wood for the handle. I've only made these tools once, I made a set and I'm still using the same set, so the process of making them is a little hazy. The one aspect I'm a little hazy on is if I heated the steel to make it harder. I've searched on the net for the tools I made but haven't been able to find an exact match, I maybe giving away someones secret, sure hope not. The closest I could find were Gravers, but they have a straight edge and I haven't used them before, they look like they could give the same result.

Making the tool should be straight forward, get a piece of wood, drill a hole for the steel to fit into, fill it with epoxy glue and force the the steel into it and let it dry. After that you can shape the handle to fit your hand and create the point on the steel that you'll be using to carve.



What you want is two curved edges that come to a point like in the photos provided, use a grind wheel to get the desired shape and then a fine grind stone to get it sharp and smooth.

Carving the Nut - The great thing about the Tagua is it has no real grain to it, so no matter where you go with the nut it wont resist, unlike materials such as wood and bone where you have to take into account the direction of the grain for your designs.

The other thing to take into account is the little hole that each nut has, some cases you can sand it out, but because there's not much of the nut to work with anyhow, incorporating the hole can be a challenge.

With power tools the job can be quick, shape it out, file it and sand it to a final product, you may have to use vices and grips to stabilize the nut. The thing I don't like about using power tools is a lot of the time it comes out looking machine made, but I guess it all depends on how good the user is with the tool. This is why I like using hand tools, you get much more fine controls over the shaping, you get to take your time with the material for best possible results.

So using the hand tool that I described how to make could be a little hard to explain unless shown, but I'll try my best.

There are two main types of positions with this tool, the first is using the point like a chisel, pushing through the material to make a groove, though with the Tagua you may find it can chip is as you go. The second is by using the curved edge to push along the surface of the material, cutting slightly into the material while allowing the tool to follow its own curve, pretty much shaving flakes from the nut, this way you can be less concerned about chipping.

After you're happy with a form you like, all that's left to do is sand paper it to your desired smoothness and you're done, maybe a little polish.

Here's a carving of a Griffin that's about half way done followed by a selection of nuts.



So I hope you liked my little guide on how to carve with Tagua, I'm sure you could take the entire thing as a metaphor for something dirty, LOL I sure hope not. I feel that carving with Tagua Nuts can be a very easy, hastle free experience for beginners and experts alike, it's one great resource.

If you have any question or suggestions (I'm sure I've left something out) please feel free to leave a comment.

UFO Photography Practice

I figured for me it would be hard to photograph UFOs, so I've started practicing.

Below are photos from my second Plane Spotting session.

So first off I got me a crop duster, dusting the hills just across the harbor.


I can't believe how much detail there is in the next two photos, never expected to be able to capture images like this with my camera, especially of a commercial airliner. I think these are of a Pacific Blue flight.

It's hard to Photograph UFOs

Well I was outside yesterday relaxing out in the last of the summer sun, had my camera in hand. I had wanted to take a photo of a contrail, but I had to recharge my batteries and this is all I got, not in its prime but they're always around here, I think planes begin their approach to Wellington airport over where I live.


Unhappy with not being prepared, I just sat outside watching the skies when it dawned on me how prepared really was I if I did actually get the chance to photograph or film something strange in the sky.

Luckily there's no shortage of planes flying about over where I live, so I started trying to capture them with my camera.


In the hour and a bit I was out there five planes flew by and that's the best shot I got, fully zoomed in with no reference points to help me, it's bloody hard. I know that with more practice I'll get better and I think planes are the perfect thing to practice on.

I have a whole new appreciation for blurred photos and shaky footage now, fully zoomed in on a moving object, only the best tripod will help, taking photos of the moon was hard enough.

The Hamilton Archives

To tell you the truth I have no idea what to make of the images in the video below, if I take them as I see them, they're some pretty phenomenal paranormal photographs, but I also have the feeling that I may be missing something, don't know a whole lot about the photos and the Hamiltons.

Luckily then there's a whole archive of images and info to explore here, some 700 odd photos.

Sheesh, more rainy day research for me.

T.G. Hamilton's Photos of Ectoplasm

Hundreds of UFO and Cropcircle Photos

Entity over at The Book of Thoth forums has posted up a link to a huge collection of UFO and cropcircle photos.

When I say huge I mean like 1500 images huge, awesome collection.

Freaky Photos From Scary Creepy Weird

she comes to me at night, originally uploaded by thesickandtwisted.

I thought that since my Flickr group is ticking along nicely without any input on my part that I'd post images submitted to it from time to time. Some great images in there, they're all pretty Scary Creepy Weird.

This image caught my attention by bringing back some of those childhood fears that I had, one was looking into mirrors in the dark, I still hate that one, and two was the fear of things peering around dark corners.

Be sure to check out the rest of thesickandtwisted's photos.

A place that smells like rotten eggs

So I've been away on holiday and I totally forgot to let anyone know, sorry about that. I went on a road trip to Rotorua with a stop off in Lake Taupo, both located in the North Island of New Zealand.

The weather was stinking hot and Rotorua was just stinking, I had passed through Rota Vegas before but I never noticed the smell, good reason for it smelling though "geothermal activity", it was pretty surprising to see steam rising from the ground in the middle of the main street, pools of hot bubbling mud on the front lawns of the houses we passed and the ever wafting smell of rotting eggs.

It felt as if we were in the middle of some ancient land, the threat of dinosaurs and erupting volcanoes was always on the imagination, though the city is pretty large and very touristy.

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

Mt Ruapehu on the why up, first time I've actually seen it, it's usually covered in clouds when I pass by.

What looks suspiciously like a nuclear silo, New Zealand is nuke free so I wonder what it is, it was big that's for sure.

Rotorua Bath House which is now the Rotorua Museum is a beautiful place.

Here's a few photos of the hot pools and mud pools located around Rotorua.






We were driving along and noticed some hunters had been lucky that day.

Mt Ruapehu on the way home.

Notice the creepy face?

It was a great trip, totally refreshed me, though coming home the same old problems are around, I think it's time for a proper change.

Oopart - Angkor Wat Dinosaur Carving

Oopart stands for Out of Place Artifact, in other words an artifact that doesn't fit or belong to where it was found, confusing matters.

Various groups hang on to cases of oopart as evidence of their beliefs, as evidence against mainstream ideas and so on, myself I just find it interesting.

Angkor Wat Dinosaur


Above is an image of a carving found at the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, some believe it to show a stegosaurus, evidence that dinosaurs lived along side humans no littler than 1000 years ago. Strictly speaking I don't know if you could call it oopart, there's bugger all info on the subject apart from those with agendas and the image above seems to be one of only a few available, I'd expect more photos seeing that it's a tourist spot.

It does seem out of place if you look at it as a dinosaur, but for me I can liken to any number of other animals.

Cryptomundo has a nice write up from when the story was hot, seems to be no new news on the subject in the 2 years since then.

Can anyone shed anymore light on these ghostly photos

I was kindly sent the following photos from Sharon who has been having problems with here bedside lamp, as in it turns itself on at night, she thought it faulty so replaced it with another, same thing happened so yet again she got a replacement, three lamps and it still turns itself on, Sharon even employed the services of an electrician to check things out, but nothing seemed wrong.

So one night Sharon decided to take some photos, the light turned on, she sat up, turned it off and quickly took some snaps, she says that the room was pitch black while taking the photos, but the results certainly show something.

Sharon also mentioned that other strange things have happened at her home, such as items going missing, all of them hers.

Sharon used an Olympus Fe-210 digital camera to take the photos, the exif data indicates the exposure times were around the 4 second mark.

I checked over the photos but I'm not the best at analyzing this kind of thing, what I found interesting was that what ever it was, it's being either illuminated from beneath or casting light down, also in the first photo there seems to be two directions of movement which seems a little odd for it to be caused by motion blur.

I was wondering if anyone else could shed any more light about what may have caused these, so if anyone could provide an answer or more information for Sharon that would be awesome.

Sharon's Photos kindly used with her permission.

I did get some Lunar Eclipse Photos

The weather cleared up a little and I managed to get some photos of the Lunar Eclipse before the clouds rolled in. I spent a good half an hour watching as the white light of the moon disappeared and a deep red took over. Took loads of photos and some video, the videos are kind of stank, can't use digital zoom in video mode.

Just popped over to Bob's Blog and he's been busy getting some images of the eclipse as well, beautiful shots.

Anyway here's some photos of the eclipse.







The colors may differ from photo to photo, I was using different exposure times to try and get the best results possible, I also used digital zoom along with optical, maybe be a little grainy.

Pareidolia Photos PH Creative

I originally took these photos for my other blog Strange Clips, but that blog is on hold for awhile, so I thought I'd be a good citizen and recycle.

Basically Pareidolia is seeing recognizable images in random things, these are from various places around my house, mostly the toilet floor, good vinyl there, I did another set before these ones which some may have seen.

Shapes in the Clouds

I love looking at the clouds for strange formations, sometimes what I see in them are so vague and I'm sure we all see something different, so I play around with them in photoshop to bring some of the Shapes in the Clouds that I see.

You may have seen the last two before I made posts for WW using them.

Face in a Lamp Post

The Hoff in the Clouds

Peeking over a Cloud

Rhino in the Sky

Skull over a Dark City


I was going to post these to my other blog Strange Clips, as you can tell buy the water marks, but I've decided to make them a WW for this blog. These are what I have made so far and I hope to make many more, as soon as I get some new cloud pictures that is.

New drone photo with a ground unit.

UFO Casebook has a new drone photo, this time though there's some kind of ground unit, looks to me like a docking device.

I don't know about this, the thing that strikes me most is that the ground device it placed in some pretty long looking grass, but the feet supporting the object are still very visible, I would imagine that the grass would be covering them up.

I'm actually enjoying this whole strange drone craft thing, mainly because the images are just cool looking and I am enjoying seeing new photos every now and then.

I'm covering most of what I find in my post titled UFO Drone photos inspired Videos, which contains links to the drone photos, the videos on youtube inspired by the photos and a few other things related to this continuing saga.