Old West Lives In His Carvings

Old West Lives In His Carvings AG WORLD 26-1-24 When Bill Bennett gave up ranching in the early 1970s, he found work in the mining industry as a "powder monkey", jamming explosives into holes drilled in solid rock. Understandably, dynamite made him nervous, especially since there was a lot of downtime between setting the charges. To keep his mind busy and his hands steady, he began whittling. That's when he discovered he had a talent for carving. Dubbed "the Michelangelo of Medicine Bow" by one publication, Bennett has since carved hundreds, maybe even thousands, of pieces ranging from individual small horses up to a large tribute to the great chiefs of the Plains Indians, involving many figures. Bennett carves in almost perfect proportion but uses no drawings and doesn't measure anything. He never uses power tools to remove larger pieces of wood. Everything is done with a common jackknife (he prefers Case or Old Timer knives). In the 30 years or so he's been carving, he figures he's worn out more than 100 knives. Bennett has carved just about every kind of wood, including ironwood and osage orange, two of the hardest woods in the world. "People sometimes bring me wood. I've carved walnut, most kinds of oak and pine, and even mahogany and rosewood," he says. Bennett has much of his work on display at his bar in Medicine Bow called "Old Diplodocus", or simply the "Dip Bar". He sells many of his pieces. When he's not busy with customers or carving, Bennett is up on a scaffold painting the bar's 2,400 sq. ft. ceiling with historic Wyoming ranch scenes he remembers from his boyhood and from photos he and his wife JoAnn have collected. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Bill Bennett, The Old Diplodocus, 202 Lincoln Hwy., Medicine Bow, Wyo. 82329 (ph 307 379-2312).

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