The first four hobo nickels I carved

notlogical

Here's the pictures of the first four hobo nickels I've carved. I was surprised with myself at how well they turned out. I hope you like them as much as I enjoyed carving them.

MilkmanDan

Where's the Spock nickel?

lasvegasteddy

out standing job
to think these were your first ever attempts too
nice very nice
i love the skullaloe best
surprized no "mr.spock" though...

LanLord

Very good!

I've looked at a couple and wondered how in the heck people can "imagine" what the end result is?!?!

If I tried that, the results would not be worth wasting the electrons on a digipix!

LotsoLuck

Those are awesome

thisnamztaken

Good job. I like #4 the best. Wish I had that talent.

mbogoman

Yeah, you need to do a Spock. And make sure you use the Spock from the parallel universe as your model (your icon), the beard is essential!

BTW - "Mirror, mirror" is one of my all-time favorite episodes. The storyline is fantastic!

mariner67

I agree, they are really outstanding!
I have no concept of how/what you use to carve those however.
An electric tool?
Best.

TwoSides2aCoin

That buffalo has perfect Spock ears. Instead of hobo nickel, a vulcan five centaur.

MidLifeCrisis

Those are great!

SeattleSlammer

Very cool. Buff-into-a-Merc I have never seen!

LanceNewmanOCC

<< <i>Where's the Spock nickel? >>



lol. that was sadly my first thought hehehe
.

TURBO

WOW!! VERY NICE!!!!

EagleEye

Great job, Sam. It was a pleasure to see you out at the seminar again. I have a feeling it will be a long time before you miss one in the future.

BryceM

I like em. If you can carve me a Kirk, Spock, Sulu, McCoy, Scottie, and Chekov I'm a buyer.

nwcoast

I like them too!
I think you're onto something... This is a tough crowd..

I like the mix of traditional-classic hobo designs and the moderns.

Thanks for sharing!

Justlooking

The two hobo hobos are my favorites.

ibzman350

Bravo!!






Herb

Justacommeman

Really really nice job. I like Skeletor the best

MJ

DorkGirl

Great job

Senex

Excellent work. Keep at it, you seem to have a flair for this sort of thing!

messydesk

Looks good! Do you now have all the tools you need to continue carving these now that you're home?

notlogical

Thankfully our instructor let us take the tools we made in class home. I had to mail them to myself though because I probably wouldn't have been let on the plane with sharp, knife-looking objects. I have the hand engraving tools I need, now I need an engravers ball and a nickel holder to really get carving. Those two pieces are really essential to holding the nickel. Ron Landis, our other instructor, had set up what is called an air-graver. Basically what it is is a miniature jack hammer. They can be pretty costly though, up to $2,700 just for the tool bit. I used that tool for most of the carving work on my mercury design. It sure is a fantastic tool! But for the other three nickels I used my hand tools and a chisel and hammer.

astrorat

Well done!

joebb21

Heres an idea:

as others have suggested make a hobo spock.
Replace in god we trust with "live long and prosper"
and replace liberty lith "logic"

THen sell it on ebay for $xx.99+

messydesk

I perused the airgraver.com site looking at all the tools you can get. Not exactly a casual investment! Sort of makes you wonder how the original hobo nickel carvers could get anything done. I do see some homemade engravers ball recipes online.

kiyote

Those came out really well!

19Lyds

I am impressed!

nibanny

Very nice! Being these nickels the first you craved you have potential!

lordmarcovan

Wow, when did you take that up? Those are great. I kinda like the "Mercury nickel". I've seen the skull done before, but on a modern Jefferson with the forward-facing portrait. Never seen one on a Buffalo.

I'm impressed. Wouldn't mind seeing pictures and/or video of your tools and/or workbench, though I suppose it might be hard to video the process while you're in close, working.

Cam40

ArizonaJack

Very nice !!!!!! I have to ask, is the skull for sale, if so I claim dibs :-) Also, google " Gesswein ball vice " , we use them in moldmaking in the machine shop, they are very handy with small parts and rotate to any angle needed. Will also hole every denomination of US coin.

notlogical

I carved these while I was at Summer Seminar. Here's a picture of the hand tools I used. The tools have different thicknesses so you have a variety of finenesses when carving the nickels. Some are better for carving lines, and others are better for scraping out metal from the fields and around the face.

lordmarcovan

Wow, what's that one that looks like Captain Hook's hand used for?

Edit to add: how many times have you slipped, and opened a gash across the coin you were working on, or worse, one of your own fingers?

This strikes me as a difficult art to master.

notlogical

The hook is used as a fulcrum to give better leverage when scraping excess metal away. Actually I never really gashed my finger. The only real injury I sustained was a big piece of skin being scraped off when my hand slipped. I also had quite a few scratches on both of my thumbs and first fingers. (from the jagged pieces of metal) I never really gouged my nickels too bad with my hand tools because the metal is so hard you really need to push hard to get your tool at the right angle to really have it dive into the metal. Gouging your coins is a lot easier with chisles.

Billzach1

Welcome to the world of coin carving..

HoledandCreative

Super job!!

kiyote

Are you signing these in any way to help obsessed geeks 100 years down the road figure out who carved them?

Constantine

<< <i>Those are awesome >>



Ditto

Cam40

You could be and honorary member of the hobo nickel society already and not know it.

johnny9434

nice job

epicrecipe

These look great! Thanks for sharing about the tools & Ron Landis too. Very cool!

cladking

Very impressive.

Are there any safety tips for beginners? Is this something we might try at home?