Power carve this cute critter from a basswood egg
By Keith Dalton
These days, eggs don’t just hatch birds. I’ve found plenty of small furry creatures hiding inside wooden eggs. With a few bits, a rotary tool, and a woodburner, you can create your own collection of egg animals.
While you can use any size wooden egg, these instructions are for a hen’s egg, which is approximately 2 3/8″ (60mm) tall. To use a larger egg, just draw the guidelines similar to what you see in these photos.
Materials:
Hen-sized basswood egg
Pencil or fine-point marker
Acrylic paint: red-brown, black-brown, tan, black, white
Matte spray
Tools:
Ruler
Rotary-power carver
Kutzall carbide-point bits: 1/8″ (3mm) tapered and 1/8″ (3mm) ball-nose cylinder
3/32″ (2.5mm) pointed diamond bit
Super-coarse 3/32″ (2.5mm) flame-shaped ruby bit
Woodburner with fine skew tip
Paintbrushes
Pin or toothpick