Well, I got another special request from an old friend. Â This time, to make him a couple of beer tap handles! Â I've thought of doing this before, but my kegerator has been out of commission for about two years (it's also a fridge, so it has food in it now), so I was glad to accept this challenge.
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I decided to tackle the more difficult of the two tap handles first. Â I met my friend when we both attended The University of Virginia, so it was no surprise that he wanted a UVa themed tap handle. Â I suppose I could have carved the Rotunda or maybe a bust of Thomas Jefferson, but I decided to go with something a bit simpler and more recognizable: the old style Virginia "V".
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As with many unplanned craft projects, this one starts out by stealing my sons' glue stick. Â They use it to make snowmobiles and stuff. Â I printed out the logo in question and pasted it to a block of poplar. Â
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I then did an initial trimming off of excess wood on the band saw.

After trimming off some excess, I began to chisel out the outline of the letters. Â This would basically transfer the logo to the wood so I can take the paper off and do some real carving.

After completing the outline, I sanded the paper off of the wood to see how I did.

Not too shabby. Â The tough parts were the R and the G. Â Those round lines are tough to get just right when you're using chisels that don't have that exact curve. Â I ended up making both of them using the small carving knife and making a bunch of tiny little cuts.
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There were several intermediate steps before the next picture, but they're pretty easily explained. Â I carved out the letters and began to carve out the big V. Â I also began to carve away some of the wood around the outside, but I decided to just head back to the bandsaw and cut away the excess. Â After cutting the excess, I went back to the chisels to clean up the edges and shape everything how I wanted it. Â
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I also grabbed the dremel with some tiny little dentist-style carving bits to get into the tiny spaces of the letters and smooth those out. Â It would take some really, really small chisels to get in there.
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The final step today was to do some touch up on the oscillating spindle sander. Â I'm not quite done with the V, but it's getting pretty close. Â I'll probably do a bit more smoothing out of the front and do a bit of texturing on the back and the edges. Â

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I'll keep you updated. Â Thanks for reading!
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