The buzzing of chainsaws can be heard long before you ever see the Forestry Arena at the Royal Highland show. Dressed head to toe in bright orange and black safety gear, the carving demonstrators spend their whole day sawing, sanding and burning their timber creations.

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This is a full-time job for Ian Chalmers, from Inverness, who has been coming to the Highland show for years.

When I started there was four of us in Scotland and now there’s probably 40 or 50

“I’m self taught really, there was no one near me doing this when I started, it’s far more popular now,” Chalmers told the Irish Farmers Journal. “When I started there was four of us in Scotland and now there’s probably 40 or 50.”

He has been carving for 15 years now and demonstrates the craft with two others at the show. The demos take place for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, as well as filling in time between other forestry demos. They sand and burn their carvings in between times to get them finished and be able to sell them at the show itself.

“It seems to be quite a big pull as there’s usually a good few people watching when we’re doing our demos,” he said. “We do a big competition every year in Cairnbridge, about 25 carvers take part in that. We get four hours and an eight foot log, you can do what you want. The judging is done by local artists. It’s such a diverse competition, the variety of carving is just unbelievable.”

He hopes to sell everything that he carves at the show there and not take any of them home. As a full-time job Chalmers has been commissioned to do a wide range of carvings.

“The last one I did was an 8ft skateboard with a little boy sitting on it, that was quite challenging,” he said. “We get weird things all the time, I’ve done Jimi Hendrix before and I’ve Elvis Presley to do so that’ll be another challenge. But we do benches and more practical things as well.”

We get weird things all the time, I’ve done Jimi Hendrix before and I’ve Elvis Presley to do

Normally speaking, “You would aim to do a couple a day, for a full carving. But you can get days you’d only get one done, or nothing with people dropping in.”

He finds that the best timber to use is “durable wood that’s soft to carve and will last outside” such as “cedar and giant redwood”.

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