Carving a Boot by Richard Higgins

I decided to carve this football boot based on my eldest sons  boots (6 year old). I was originally going to use it as a prototype and carve an adult size pair of boots, but as usual other carvings took priority.

As you can see, I found a piece of Lime suitably sized for the football boot in question

I've already drawn the profiles on the boot and cut it out using a band saw, you'll also notice that I've left extra wood to ease the handling while working on it

I've started to, `round off` the boot in all directions and made a start on the tongue and where the lace holes are going to go. I still haven't attempted to do anything with the studs just yet.

Having marked out the studs and carved them  it's time to start adding the finer detail and start sand papering!

These pictures show that after hollowing out the boot and making sure that the walls of the boot weren't too thin then it was time to put in hours of sanding and to add that final detail of stitching, lace holes and stripes.

Finally, it's time to finish off with a couple of coats of Danish oil and add the actual laces to give it that completed look

Just to give the carving that extra final touch. I decided to place the boot on a piece of turf which was made by carving some small stud impressions into a piece of lime, then gluing some `model making` grass.

I hope you enjoyed looking and reading about my carving as much as I did producing it!

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