For quite a while I have admired the chandaliers and other light fixtures I have seen in magazines made out of antlers, but not too fond of the price. Recently, I stumbled upon a nice bunch of antlers. I'm crafty, so I can make these items myself, but where to start... I really need some reference material. The cord goes in at the base of the antler, and the light bulb is on one of the tines. This is a curvy hole, how do you do that? I have lots of questions. Anybody who can help point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
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First thing to note is that most of those lights and dodad's that you see are.........plastic. Being plastic, they are easy to mill using a dremel tool. You can cut channels in the plastic to run the wire through and then fill in with apoxi sculpt. Then paint and assemble. presto.
Working with the real thing is a bunch tuffer. Antler is hard material. Good luck
Well, that's frustrating. I appreciate the help. I had seen some when we went to the Boone and Crockett exibit this father's day at Cabela's in Kansas City. When I looked really close, I could see little holes where it looked like somebody had used wood putty. I had to get really close to notice it, and I'm not sure it was wood putty, but that's what I thought when I saw it. If they're not real antlers, why in tarnation are they so expensive?! Do you think that the epoxi sculpt would be visible on the real thing? If I made channels in the antlers and filled them in, do you think that it would be too obvious? I'd really like to try something, but I'm concerned about the possibility of destroying a perfectly good antler. Isn't there something I should use to preserve the antler after I'm done with the project? My husband said something about some kind of spray, but he wasn't too sure. Thanks for the help.
I think the Van Dykes catalog has kits to make lights from antlers. I'm sure some of the answers to your questions would be in the instructions.