Lika’s Log

My sowa knees pau. Totally a tahitian/hula not in shape getmyass to da gym thing. Especially getdaoloke to da gym part. So of course now that pau pain there, it has to go else where. LOL

NOW my back is hurting. I was gonna say latissimus dorsi. Why do I know those kines of words? Then again its not really da lats, its infraspintas or tres major,maybe minor. hehehe My shoulder blades is throbbing big time. Ok just achey-breaky. Why would that be you ask? Ok you did not ask. But anyways….

I had an ipu heke workshop this morning. We (da class) is working on making ipu hekes its required for this program I tell you about bumbye. Cause as one ada story.

So last week us wen go to da gourd farm and find gourds. Today we worked on making’um. So you gotta scrub da outside of da gourd, den you cut da top off, anden you gotta clean out da insai; scrape scrape scrape out all da seeds & membranes. Stink you know. So need fo’do two yeah one fo’da top piece and da bottom. Sounds simple enough.

I suppose it is if you do it ALL the time. This is my first time. Its very labor intensive. And when da day is done, da back stay sowa. Ha’come? LOL Where’s my meds?

I did intend to document da process in pictures until my camera no can even turn on. Whatisupwitdat? Junk da kine. So for da record, no record no pic-chas.

So afta you do all of da outside den you gotta cut off da top. There’s a reason I’m not a carpenter? I am one of those parthopeless HOW do you use this tool type. But had fo’saw off da top and so I needed to do saw-ing. Da regular hand saw. Its just a gourd right. Well I had to pick the hardest and thickest shell ipu cause afta I chopped off da top which took longa den most, hello no had puka juss hard gourd so had to hack off another inch. MORE sawing. I am not one with a saw, my back is a testement to dat right now.

Ok pau da sawing now da long time part, scrape scrape scraping. You have to wear a mask, da stuff is haunau. Plus some people are very allergic to da dust and stuff and even if you not its bad to be inhaling dat junk. I learned: A backscratcher works real well in digging out all da opala. You could use a drill dilly wit this attachment and you putt’um inside and it scrapes all da innards. You have to KNOW how to do it cause if you don’t do it right or do it too hard you can crack da ipu. I figured I’d be safer and more authentic and do manual style. Hence my sowa back.

Gotta do two pieces, da top and bottom. Den you gotta cut out one moe puka in da head part. To do dat we had a Drummel drill? Drimmel? A DRILL I’ve never used before. Ok the first drill I’ve EVER used. I’m not a driller, I’m da drillee. LOL BUT I digress. K-so I drawed my circle, den make one puka and follow da circle, stay on da inside part of the drawn circle. Easy for dem to say. My hand was shaking all ova da place. My circle look moe like one flowa, da edges all kinda crooked-dee. But I stayed insai da line. I drew da circle wit a compass, juss dat it doesn’t look like it. But I like it, no need fix make perfect circle. As my signature. Nobody can say as their ipu, as my identifing mark dat. It has character LOL look who madem. Fo’shua as not one commercial piece, I no tink anybody can copy my style circle, not even me. As one time only kine. An ART piece. LOL

Den da next fun part is stuck’um togedda. You gotta make sure da piece fit snug. Gotta sand’um. I didn’t know dat bigass file was called a RASP. Learn something new everyday yeah? Den I tape’um up on da outside keep’um stuck togedda in place. Den had to do serious glue work. I’m like Hawaiians no had Gorilla Glue huh? But now is now. So thankfully had one of da kids making there’s too and I’m like hey will you stick your hand down in deya and do da glue part. She was happy to oblige and I told her I could make her one badge (cause her GirlScout) for ipu heke making. LOL ALWAYS use gloves wen using Gorilla Glue. And for those who don’t know, I just learned this today too; Gorilla Glue expands up to 4times. All this woodshop talk is so new to me.

Anyways dat how far I got. It sill needs to be stained. I also found a gourd that was perfect ipu shape plus it had a narrow neck and so I prepared that one. I have a store bought ipu so I wanted one dat I could say “I made dis.” See how crooked. I bought these two itty bitty gourds like 2-3 inches tall. Too cute, so I cut off da tops using da drill. I know wrong tool, but it worked. Sanded it, tied braided raffia around it and TAH-dah my car got a new mirror ornament. I wanna go get more and try try make Xmas ornament and play wit glittahs. *L*

I know, too bad no moe pic-chas. My ipu heke’s kinda jacked up looking maybe it’ll look better when its stained. LOL

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at 10:51 pm and is filed under Da Kine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.