Simon Bogg chainsaw sculptor from Louth, Lincolnshire, spends up to three days on a single piece, charges as much as £7,000 for his most complex commissions, and built a career out of an art form he taught himself entirely from scratch, starting with a mushroom his mother requested one Sunday afternoon.
Bogg, now 53, has been carving with chainsaws for nearly 30 years, the last 15 of them full-time. He typically produces around three carvings per week, working eight-hour shifts on intricate pieces that include horses, birds, rhinos, badgers, elephants, and the owls that remain his most popular sellers. Carved owls fetch upwards of £150 depending on the level of detail; his largest pieces change hands for between £5,000 and £7,000.
His tallest carving stands 22 feet (6.7 metres) high. Each piece is made either from imported cedar wood from the Pyrenees Mountains or from timber sourced from local gardens. He freestyles every sculpture without prior planning beyond a source photograph for the more complex subjects.
How Simon Bogg’s chainsaw sculpting career began
Bogg’s route into the craft was accidental. He had been working in the building trades when his mother asked him to make a mushroom. ‘I had never done anything with a chainsaw before. I used hers and spent a Sunday afternoon doing it,’ he said. ‘A week later she rang and said I’ve got five orders for you.’
Those five mushrooms led to a bear, then a country show at which he sold everything he made. ‘They loved it,’ he said. ‘Now I’ve been doing it nearly 30 years, 15 years full-time.’ The business now takes commissions across the UK, with each piece carved freehand to the customer’s specification.
The work is physically demanding and carries genuine risk. Bogg is straightforward about the hazards: ‘Everything we do with a chainsaw you shouldn’t do with a chainsaw.’ Hoisting a running saw for multiple hours produces sore backs, aching wrists, and persistent pain. There is also the risk of deafness and lingering vibrations from prolonged use. He does not minimise any of it, but he is equally clear about his commitment to the work. ‘People say, “When am I getting a proper job.” But I love it.’
Simon Bogg chainsaw sculptor and the Captain Tom commission
One piece stands out both for its scale of effort and the purpose it served. According to the BBC, Bogg spent 10 days producing an intricate life-size carving of Captain Tom Moore, which was raffled and fetched almost £7,000 in ticket sales. The Grimsby Telegraph reported that the sculpture went up for raffle at his workshop at the point when Captain Tom had raised £28 million for the NHS during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Captain Tom piece pushed the upper limit of the time Bogg ordinarily commits to a single carving and illustrated what he means when SWNS asked which animals or subjects he most enjoys: ‘I really like the big ones, that are in your face… The things that people say are impossible.’
Wood carving at this scale is a niche within a niche, and Lincolnshire is not a county typically associated with fine art or sculpture. Bogg operates outside galleries and formal art markets, selling mainly through commissions and shows. That independence is part of what makes the physical toll worth cataloguing honestly: there is no institutional support behind the work, only the carver and the log.
His most recent major piece is an elephant, which he estimates could be worth around £5,000. On his method, he keeps it simple: ‘I just get a lump of wood, and get on with it. Chop away what you don’t need and then start shaping up.’ After nearly 30 years, the process has not changed much. The mushroom just got considerably bigger.
