Grinning Driftwood Shark

One of my favorite things is walking around and consciously watching for things that resemble something waiting to be brought to light.

Like this piece of wood, laying at the beach and screaming “hey, I’m more than just a stick :-)”.

And, yes, clearly resembled a shark, with fins, eyes, mouth, teeth…

This is the same thing after some initial carving and polishing.

Here after some more sanding.

Now I wanted to make it shiny, but with natural ingredients. Since I didn’t want to use the oil I use normally, I tried something different this time.

After rubbing the shark with some Australian hair oil it really smelled fantastic, but I never got it to really shine.

Next I tried wax. By using a swimming candle and rubbing the shark with it, I deposited some paraffin on the wood and the went about it with a gas stove lighter to melt it.

Worked pretty well, and the wood sucked up all of it.

After polishing it with a soft cotton cloth, painting the teeth white and inserting the dentures again, it looked like this.