Angora Chaps

Here's a quick little post on how I make Angora chaps also known as woolies.  These were worn in cold weather for obvious reasons and really make a neat detail over the normal leather versions.
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After carving the platform for the wool I use a stoning wheel to rough up the surface.  This creates a lot of fuzz so after burning on some detail to the ends of the wool I reach for the propane torch.  I very carefully run the flame over the stoned areas to quickly burn off the fuzz.  You have to be careful here not to burn too much and also not to get so involved you burn the fingers holding the piece.  Trust me it hurts!  After that I use a little soldering brush to brush off most of the charred wood and them give it a good wipe with a dry cloth.  
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If you're going to paint your chaps white I'd advise using gesso as a first coat to cover most of the charred areas.  However, if you're going to paint them brown as I think these will be you don't have to do anything as the charred wood will only enhance the color.
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As my Mom continues to improve it shouldn't be much longer before we can get back to normal operations.  Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, while time at the workbench and behind the video camera may have slowed down or halted completely the carving sales out of the Gallery have surged resulting in quite a few empty areas over there.  So, for the time being at least I'm going to be concentrating on fleshing the place out with a few new figures.  But rest assured we will eventually crank the full operation up again.  And again, thanks for your concern and understanding.