Edmonton woodcarver says Rambo sculpture is ‘a little bit of me’ — minus the muscles and dry rot

Ryan Villiers is a chainsaw-wielding Edmonton woodcarver whose latest creation depicts the Sylvester Stallone character John Rambo. The Western red cedar statue, standing almost seven feet tall, towers outside the town hall in Hope, B.C., where 1982’s First Blood movie was filmed almost 40 years ago. Villiers, a full-time chainsaw carver for the last two years, completed the finely detailed statue — right down to the wrinkled pants and bullet belt… He is … downright delighted over an Instagram shout-out he got from Sly Stallone himself. …Villiers’s toolkit includes about a half-dozen different sized chainsaws, Dremel tools, and lots of sandpaper. None of these were able to save Rambo’s first head. …”I had to do his head twice,” Villiers said. “I ran into some kind of dry rot in the wood, I couldn’t dial in his eyelids and they kept flaking off.  “Off with his head, I put a new one on. And, oh, I was happy that one worked out.”