I spent 400 hours carving a T-Rex skull out of Old Growth Redwood Burl.

Step 1:

I purchased this amazing MASSIVE piece of Old Growth Redwood Burl. I sketched on my design and worked with the natural wood shape to maximize the size of the skull.

Step 2:

I cut the burl into more workable pieces while also squaring up the sides to help with my carving process.

Step 3:

I used templates of a T-Rex skull to draw on and basically use the chainsaw to just cut closer and closer to my lines.

Step 4:

This was about a week into the carving and you can see it is starting to take shape, however there is still a LOT to uncover.

Step 5:

Further along in the process I began to carve out the inside. This was the most challenging parts of the entire build, as no tools I had could get into the angles. What should have taken only a couple days ended up taking a full week because I had to remove material so slowly.

Step 6:

Time for the teeth! The largest tooth I carved was over 5" long. I selected the most beautiful pieces of wood to use for the teeth. Each tooth was carved, sanded and implanted into the skull. I then used wood glue mixed with sawdust to hide all of the gaps.

Step 7:

I sanded this piece for 2 weeks. Sanding the inside portion of this skull was very time consuming. I had to sand 95% of this piece by hand.

Step 8:

I made a one of a kind pedestal. Solid Oak dyed black with brass accents. The pedestal has a raised platform for the lower jaw to rest on with magnets. It also has LED lights inside that light up the inside of the skull.