By Reid Forgrave
The Cincinnati Enquirer

GREEN TWP. - Sara Erras of Cheviot carves dozens of wooden redbirds as Christmas gifts for grandchildren.

Clara Perkins (left) works on an elephant while her sister Alma Hollingsworth works on a donkey. (Tony Jones photo)

Lu Brankamp of North College Hill has nearly finished the lighthouse she's been carving for years.

Every bass wood whittler at the Green Township Senior Center has a specialty.

Herb Hollingsworth of Green Township shows off an intricate eagle with hundreds of tiny feathers he burned in.

George Schulenberg, a retired mechanical engineer from North College Hill, likes chipping intricate designs like rosettes.

Wilbur "Webb" Reis, a retired Green Township machinist, carves horses. The cowboy-boot-wearing Nebraska native herded cattle as a kid.

They tease each other. ("How's this look?" one says; "You got a fireplace?" another replies.) They help each other, too, on class projects like Easter bunnies or crosses.

But every Wednesday afternoon, you'll find the 50 members of the Green Wood Chippers chipping away at their contagious art.

"It just takes patience and time," said Ron Sonderman, a 69-year-old Monfort Heights man who is carving his family's coat of arms. "You sit here every week with your fellow carvers, and you're just in your own world."

Sonderman estimates he's been working for more than a decade to carve five coats of arms.

These seniors have tackle boxes filled with carving gear - gouges to scoop out hunks of wood, dozens of razor-sharp knives, sharpening stones, and stacks of bandages.

"You're not a carver until you got stitches," said Clara Perkins, showing off the scar on her left wrist.

And nearly every enthusiast here subscribes to Chip Chats, a woodcarving magazine published in Madeira.

"It's really amazing how much interest there is in our little magazine," said editor Edward Gallenstein, who boasts of a circulation of 45,000 and subscribers in 48 countries.

The Green Wood Chippers, whose logo is a beaver voraciously gnawing a log, try to recruit kids. Many say their grandchildren carve. And every year the Chippers hold a soap-carving contest at the Harvest Home Fair.

More information on wood-carving

Internet: www.chipchats.org

E-mail: nwca@chipchats.org

Office: National Wood Carvers Association

7424 Miami Road

Cincinnati, OH 45243

The Green Wood Chippers meet every Wednesday from 12:30-3 p.m. at the Green Township Senior Center, 3620 Epley Road, off North Bend Road in Green Township. Call the senior center at 513-385-3780.

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E-mail rforgrave@enquirer.com