"The reaction I get from most people is total surprise," says egg carver Stephen Truax. "People tell me all the time that you can't carve eggs, but I do. They're are just not as fragile as people think. In fact, I don't recall ever breaking one."
A trip to Las Vegas is where Stephen started down the road to becoming an egg carver. "I saw someone carving eggs out there, and said to myself, 'I can do that,' so I went home and starting experimenting." Stephen first began practicing on turkey and goose eggs and then moved on to Emu and Rhea eggs. "It was like anything else arty or crafty," Stephen says, "practice, practice, practice. I tried different techniques and experimented with different bits for my drill to find out what worked best for me. From there it has grown." His carving is done with a tool (figure A) similar to a dentist drill. One of the things that Stephen learned from his experimentation was that the carving tool makes all the difference. "I started with an electrical carving tool but it was a bit slow and created vibration, which is awful when you're trying to carve fine detail." Stephen recommends an air turbine tool, of which there are several on the market. They are powered by a small compressor and run 300 to 400 thousand rpm instead of the 15 to 30 thousand rpm of an electrical tool. "You'll need a wide variety of bits (figure B) for the drill depending on what material you want to carve," he says. Stephen primarily uses carbide tipped bits. In addition, Stephen uses a scribe, which is a metal pencil that holds a small bit. Stephen uses the scribe to hand etch some portions of his patterns. Stephen carves under a Plexiglas box that he's built to contain the egg dust. The box has holes to accommodate his hands and a small fan that pulls the egg dust out of the box and passes it through a piece of tubing that Stephen has vented outdoors. "To get started, you'll need a good dust mask because egg dust is a bothersome byproduct of the carving process." He also wears safety glasses to protect his eyes from bits of eggshell, and he uses magnification and good lighting when he has to do close-up work. As for the eggs, Stephen says they're not hard to find at all. "There are many egg distributors listed on the Internet and with luck you might be able to find one or two that are in your area," he says. One of Stephen's favorite eggs is the Emu egg. "It's not fragile and it has a very interesting shell," he explains. "The Emu egg actually has three layers to its shell. Each layer is a different color; the outside is dark green and inside there is a light green layer and a cream colored layer." This color difference enables Stephen to create patterns with dimension and shading. "Getting into the hobby of egg carving will run around $800 to $1,000 dollars," Stephen advises. "Really the only fancy tool you have to have is the drill itself. There is a learning curve to carving eggs," Stephen says, "but anyone whose willing to spend a little money and invest a little time can indeed do it themselves."
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