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Gieger whacks out four- to eight-inch-high cowpokes, convicts, airline pilots, dentists and rattlesnakes. An ornery mule, an Indian with a toothache, a sheriff defending law and order or a small-town sot may start the chips flying as Gieger works to reproduce his impression in wood. Almost anything with a strong earthy flavor appeals to this whittler who has made the conventional loafer's pastime payoff, but his first love is Western characters. He's never whittled a hardbitten cowhand yet who couldn't blast the head right off a rattler at twenty paces, spit in a rustler's eye against a high wind, or herd cattle all day and square dance the night out with the prettiest gals in Texas.

As an East Texas farm boy of eleven, Gieger first became interested in whittling. One day while he and his brother, James, were cutting logs, he noticed how the wood glistened in the sun. "You know," recalls Gieger, "I decided right then I could make a man out of wood." And he did. It was crude, but it satisfied a creative urge that began to gnaw at him. The figure was followed by many others—farm animals, animals he saw in a circus, characters inspired by pictures in magazines. Everything interested the farm-boy whittler.

AS GIEGER grew older, his parents and neighbors were surprised that his yen for whittling did not pass with his growing pains. The farm-boy had heard that some people made a living by carving characters in wood and stone, and he determined to earn his living the same way. The fact that his parents, were not financially able to send him away to study did not dampen his belief in himself.

As a young man, Gieger got the brilliant idea of carving life-size heads in wood to suit the skin color of the subjects . . . bois d'arc with its rich yellow color for Orientals, redwood for Indians, ebony for Negroes, etc. He followed through with the idea and produced several heads, but it seemed there were no buyers. He began to feel that his whittling was a failure and decided to give it up as a bad job. Most of his, pieces were given to friends.

With his hope of becoming a famous sculptor gone, his attitude toward whittling changed. It became a form of relaxation. From white pine he whacked out little characters six or eight inches high that expressed humor—something for a laugh.

Once his boss at an oil company where he worked got his new shoes stolen from a locker in a bowling alley. Gieger came up a few days later with a pine figure of the old boy, glum and bare-foot, searching for them while another employee of his company sneaked off with the footgear. The boys at the office had a lot of fun with the set.

One of Gieger's early trips to the dentist inspired some more whacking. By the time his own sore jaw had gotten well, he had whittled out a scared Indian in a frontier-day dental chair with the dentist, both feet braced against the patient's chest, straining to extract the aborigine's incisor. A rough looking nurse stood by enjoying the show, holding a mallet in one hand; in the other a pair of pinchers large enough to dehorn a steer. Duplicates of that set are still among Gieger's best sellers.

The famous Judge Roy Bean, "Law West of the Pecos," of frontier days, sparked another Gieger whittling consisting of sixteen separate characters. The story goes that the Judge was trying a hoss-thief before a jury in the early days in Texas and asked, "How much money has the defendant?" "Thirty dollars," replied the prosecuting attorney. "Fine the defendant thirty dollars . . . and hang him. That's the law in this here court," sang out Judge Bean. "Court's adjourned." This court scene consists of twelve assorted jurymen, the defendant, a prosecuting attorney, the sheriff, the judge, and courtroom furniture complete with cuspidors and a table for stacking their shootin' irons.

The legendary character, Pecos Bill, the Paul Bunyan of the Southwest, inspired another piece with catawampus in hand and a rattler coiled at his feet.

WHITTLING WAS a lot of fun to Gieger, but his wife began to feel that she was a wood-shavings-widow. She suspected that the guy must have something more interesting than a block of wood and a sharp pocketknife out there in his twelve-by-fourteen workroom in the back yard. Every evening when he got home from work, he made a dash for the little shop and there he stayed until hunger or sleep drove him in. She often wondered whether sawdust wouldn't run out instead of blood if her whittling husband should let his knife slip and cut his finger.

Gieger understood how she felt and decided to get her interested in sharing his hobby. He found that she did not care to whittle, but enjoyed painting clothes on the finished characters, although she always insisted that her husband paint the faces. Sharing the hobby made it mutually interesting, and today their two children, David, eight, and Beverly Jane, eleven, also help in some of the painting.

In 1932 a friend who worked at the local airport came out to Gieger's house and wanted to buy his carvings to sell to tourists. That was quite a surprise to Gieger. He had whittled out beautiful pieces in hard wood with no buyers, but these little pine figures were rough . . . they were just for fun. The friend insisted on purchasing them and offered $5 for a set of four or five pieces. Since 1932 was one of the depression years, the money looked big, and Gieger sold out his entire stock.

About that first sale, he says, "The biggest thrill was not the cash but that someone was willing to pay good money for my work."

WHITTLING WAS fun before Gieger found out it had commercial value, but money gave the hobby added impetus. Gieger whittled almost everywhere he went and still does . . . on the bus or waiting for a haircut. "That habit has its merit, though," says Mrs. Gieger. "If I ever lose track of him, he's a cinch to find. All I have to do is just follow the train of chips."

People are always curious at seeing Gieger whittle while riding to work or waiting for a dental appointment. When he shows them some of his work, the usual query is, "Why don't you whittle something pretty?"

Some time ago, Gieger was especially proud of some new rugged individuals he had whacked out, and showed them to one of his business acquaintances. The man acknowledged that they were quite humorous and very interesting but asserted, "That kind of stuff doesn't bring in any money, young man."

The man's assertion was a little ludicrous in view of the fact that Gieger's poker sets consisting of three Western characters, a Chinese cook and a female bar-fly playing poker at a two-inch-high table sell for $125 each. As a matter of fact, that is his best selling item and he has been unable to keep the supply equal to the demand. He makes a single eight-inch-high Western character which he calls "The Sharpshooter," and sells for $75. The "Painless Dentist" set, described earlier in the text, sells for $125. A pair of six-inch-high airline pilots depicting a departing and a returning pilot sells briskly at $75 a pair. Any single character that Gieger produces is worth $25 and up.

It is obvious that his prices are not static and will continue to rise as his name is better known. The supply is limited. Every piece is handmade, and it takes time. He figures that he could whittle the "Sharpshooter" piece in a day but he may take two weeks to do it working only in odd moments. He insists that he can accomplish more in ten minutes when he really wants to whittle than in an hour when he is not in the mood.

GIEGER SUGGESTS that a beginner taking up whittling try a fairly simple compact piece first. "All the features should be exaggerated," he says. "If your character has a large nose, don't be a piker. Give him a snozzle he can use for a shovel if necessary." Certainly a person with a yen to create humor and a good supply of patience has a head start. "One nice thing about working on rough character pieces," says Gieger, "is that if you make a mistake and whack the wrong way, that may be just what the piece needed to make it look mean or create a humorous expression. We have to keep in mind that the world is starved for laughs." A beginning whittler can get ideas as Gieger does from Western movies, magazine pictures and real people.

Gieger used the pattern on the left and went through the following steps in whittling the row of unpainted figures shown in the photograph.

He made a profile pencil sketch on notebook paper considerably larger than the finished figure to allow room for wrinkles in clothing, coat lapels, neckerchief and the like. As the head was whittled separate from the body he did not include it with the body but sketched it separately. He cut out this sketch for a pattern and held it tightly against a 3½-to-4-inch-thick piece of dry bass wood and traced around it with a pencil. He followed the outline on the wood with his fourteen-inch band saw. (The use of the band saw was not a necessity, for he used a coping saw and a wood-chisel for many years before he bought one.) Then, he drilled a ¼-inch hole about an inch deep in the upper center of the block to receive the shank of the neck when he whittled it and the head out of a separate piece of wood later. He marked the location of arms, legs, coat and boots on the blank with a pencil and began to whittle with the front of the blank facing him. Cutting off small pieces of wood, he worked around it several times getting its general form. That was done to keep the body in proportion. As the pencil marks were whittled off, he replaced them until the figure assumed the desired shape. After the general form was whittled, he worked in folds and wrinkles in the clothes, buttons, neckerchief and details of boots and jeans.

The head was whittled in the same manner as the body, out of a separate piece of bass wood. The profile of the head was traced upon a block of wood, leaving the neck about an inch longer than the desired finished length, for insertion into the hole drilled in the body. He faced his blank, marked in the position of nose, ears, mouth, chin and hat. He whittled off small bits of wood, working completely around the head several times to keep the features in proportion. The pencil marks were replaced as needed. When the head was nearing general completion, he looked at his own face in a mirror and tried different expressions until he found one he wanted his figure to wear. He used this expression as a model to whittle in the final expression of the face.

The head being separate permits twisting into any position for various effects before gluing to fix it permanently. If the set consists of more than one character, Gieger whittles each one separately before assembling them into their respective positions. Gieger has found it a good practice to put the figures aside for examination a few days later for possible further refinement before painting.

Some of his sets have all figures movable. Others have them secured to small baseboards of unpainted soft pine. In the "Poker" set, each figure is whittled separate from his chair and secured to it later with a countersunk screw from the bottom of the seat. None of these figures are secured to a baseboard but are left movable for different seating arrangements at the table. The "Painless Dentist" set, has all figures secured in a fixed position on a soft pine baseboard. The nurse is secured with a countersunk screw from the bottom of the baseboard. The base of the dental chair is secured in like manner. The patient is secured with a screw in the bottom of the chair which is then glued to the chair base. The dentist is secured on top of the patient with a wooden peg which passes through his leg and the leg of the patient. This arrangement keeps all metal screws out of sight and leaves only wood showing.

Gieger has tried many different tools and gadgets, but he always comes back, to his pocketknife, his favorite being one he bought before the last war for $5. A band saw or coping saw and wood-chisel are needed for roughing out the figures, and a drill of some sort is needed for making the hole for securing head to body. Gieger uses a small lathe for turning out such items as barrels and tables to furnish his sets.

When Gieger is satisfied with his rough looking characters (he never touches them with sandpaper), he paints them, with flat-finish oil paint, using assorted sizes of artist's camel's hair brushes. Sometimes he uses tempera paint mixed with linseed oil, but his main requirement is paint that will not fade, will not show gloss and will allow some of the wood to show through.

To paint a completed character, Gieger begins with white for eyeballs and teeth since these items may need two or three coats to make them show up well. He paints exposed skin areas with flesh color next. Hair and beard are then painted, care being taken to make this color contrast with that of the hat and boots. If hat and boots are to be black, the hair and beard should be brown. Cheeks, end of the nose and lips are painted red to give the character life. Garish colors of varying combinations are used for clothes, because Gieger believes that the average cowboy wants his clothes loud but is not particular what color they are. Shirt is checked or striped and neckerchief is spotted after the colors have dried. The irises of the eyes are painted last in order to make them look in the direction that best suits the expression on the face.

PEOPLE ARE interested in and will buy caricatures of themselves or their occupations. Ranchers are interested in Western characters, airline pilots in his wood pilots, dentists in his "Painless Dentist" set and the like.

Realizing that many people who could pay good prices for his pieces traveled by air, Gieger made arrangements to meet the manager of the Curio and souvenir department of Meacham Field at Fort Worth, Texas, through a friend who worked there. He arranged with him to sell his characters for an average of about one-third of the selling price for his commission. He set up an attractive exhibit at the field which has been his only sales outlet, except orders that come to his residence, for the last several years. He sells from 100 to 150 pieces a year. This has taken almost his complete output since he has a full time job as a clerk with the Pure Oil Company in Fort Worth, Texas, and devotes only his spare time to his hobby.

Vernon Johns, the man who handles the Gieger characters at the air field, says that many people buy the carvings for gifts. Two airline pilots bought a set as a gift for their boss, the president of Delta Airlines. One of the nation's leading building contractors with headquarters in Houston, Texas, has some Gieger pieces. A jewelry store in Dallas, Texas, uses one of his sets in its window display. A group of wrestling fans want to buy a set of rough and tumble wrestlers as a gift for a local idol, although Gieger hasn't even produced the figures yet. A cigar salesman bought a "poker scene" and paid it out in installments. Recently, a woman collector in Florida wired about a piece she had seen when she had gone through Fort Worth. There was a delay because Johns was out of town. The lady became impatient and contacted him about her order by long distance telephone. A great many, if not most, of the sales are made to travelers who, after they reach their destinations, write back and describe the piece they want.

Four years ago Gieger was commissioned to whittle Western characters to ride miniature tractors and farm equipment advertising a machinery concern at the Texas State Fair in Dallas. The manager of the machinery concern had seen some of Gieger's work while in Fort Worth and knew it was just what he needed to sell his exhibit to the people at the fair. He was right. The characters attracted so much attention that the exhibit was a big success.

Before Gieger started selling at the air field, he attracted attention to his products by taking sample characters to local merchants with the proposition that they could use his sets for window display attractions if they would allow him to place his name and address on a card in the window. This plan worked especially well with jewelry stores. The First National Bank in Fort Worth also had a Gieger exhibit in a front window for a considerable length of time. They were not selling merchandise, but they found it good business to make their bank as attractive and interesting as possible.

In the near future most of the air travel will be shifted from Fort Worth and Dallas to a big new super-airport between the two cities. Gieger hopes to have an exhibit there and is working hard to build up his stock for its expected heavy demand.