Woodcarver keen on details turns out art

Mulberry craftsman’s long hours produce pocketknives, trains - even a shotgun

— It’s easy to see Quinton Brandon isn’t exaggerating when he says he spends as much time as he can in a workshop behind his home in rural Crawford County.

There’s little if any wasted space in the building that holds an amazing collection of handcarved art ranging from kitchen utensils to miniature single barrel break-action shotguns with working trigger mechanisms.

Wood-carving started as a childhood hobby for Brandon, 78, before it became a full-time calling.

Brandon started out whittling airplanes from orange crates and toy pistols from cedar posts, before moving on to more challenging projects later in life.

He started carving and selling canes in 1976, although it wasn’t until July 1984 when neck and back problems forced him to retire from his job at Whirlpool Corp. that Brandon jumped headfirst into more detailed work.

Brandon started carvingeight or nine hours a day, although 16-hour days weren’t uncommon as he continued to challenge himself.

One early challenge was carving a fully functioning, wooden lock-blade knife.

A dozen examples of his success hang on a pegboard in the front room of his workshop, while the knife he patterned it after remains in a drawer of his workbench.

“It was a challenge; I just wanted to see if I could do it,” Brandon said.

Brandon not only met the challenge, but he did it and all his projects using homemade carving tools.

Although he has two commercial woodcarving kits in a drawer, Brandon said the handles were too small and the blades were too limber.

Brandon took the blades from pocketknives and mounted them on large handles he made, allowing him to get a better grip and work longer without his hands’ cramping.

Travis Brandon, one of Quinton’s grandchildren, saidhe’s most impressed by a train set his grandfather carved that’s mounted on a hand-carved trestle in his grandparents’ living room.

The set has a steam engine, a coal car, a flatbed car, a box car and a caboose, all highly detailed with functioning wheels.

Brandon said completing the set took three months, working eight to 14 hours a day, seven days a week.

While the train was timeconsuming, Brandon said the most difficult project was the shotgun, because of the detail involved in creating a working trigger mechanism.

The front room of Brandon’s workshop is filled with canes, flatware, serving utensils, jewelry boxes, straight razors, lock-blade knives, pliers, small shotguns, cedar chests, and more, all hand-carved.

The volume of work is so great, it’s tempting to insist it was produced on an assembly line, but what’s in countless boxes stacked around the workshop might be more unbelievable.

Tiny hand-carved components, some no more than 1 to 1 1 /2 inches long, fill boxes of all sizes, in the front and back rooms of Brandon’s workshop.

Brandon said he keeps the parts on hand so he can put together jewelry boxes, gun racks, shelves and other pieces more quickly if someone orders one.

His wife of 55 years, Joyce, used to do the varnish on his finished work, although her health prevents her from doing it now.

Even though she doesn’t work with him anymore, Joyce said she’s glad her husband is still able to do something he enjoys so much.

But Brandon said a bad back and arthritic hands will force him to lay down his knives soon, with no plan for what comes next.

“I can’t watch TV, watching them old soap operas, I hate those things. The computer, I ain’t got no use for them, and I don’t talk on the phone,” Brandon said. “They’ll probably plant me.”

Arkansas, Pages 24 on 07/25/2010

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