carving help

[Charlie Santi]

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid200/p605dfd98ad95ac4f0e15959ae209d054/f08d6414.jpg One of my current projects is restoring Wright K #134 a local one design built in Dundee NY. There were 324 of them made. I am in the process of making a new deck plate with the hull number. I have never done much carving. In the photos is the original deck plate and the start of mine. I carved it with some small chisels and an exacto set. http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid200/pd3d7859dc54cd4a6407aa83d3b75c2e4/f08d6428.jpg What I am asking for is comments as to what I am doing and suggestions as to where to go for help with carving. What type of tools should I be using and where to get examples of this yet to be learned skill. I have another 'K' to do after this one and it will require a deck plate as well.

[ 01-17-2006, 11:05 AM: Message edited by: Charlie Santi ]

[Bruce Hooke]

It is a bit hard to see the details of your carving well enough to judge how it is coming out. Are there specific aspects of it that you are not happy with?

That said, I'm going to guess that some of what may be giving you trouble is outlining the letters so that you can carve away the ground. True? If so I would consider getting a couple of carving gouges with the right arcs to define the inside and outside of the typical letters. This is especially true of the really tight inside curves. The outside curves can be defined as a closely spaced series of flats and then rounded off, but defining curves like the inside of the "R", "G", "B" and "U" is likely to be difficult.

Once you have defined the letters than you can get in with standard chisels, a skew carving chisel, or if you really want to get fancy, a dogleg chisel, to clean out the ground.

[Charlie Santi]

Hi Bruce, I am not happy with the detail none of my lines seem crisp and clean. Had a lot of trouble with the wood spliting and tearing rather than cutting. I put filler in some areas that tore bad, but I don't want to do that on the finished one. The one I am replacing is mahogany, however several were cut from cedar. My practice one is mahogany. Just not sure where to go with it, almost with I had acess to an NC router or laser.

[Donn]

Charlie, if you're open to using power tools, you can get great results using a Dremel, or comparable rotary grinder with round grinding bits. You basically erode the unwanted wood away, instead of cutting or splitting it away. Start with an accurate stencil of the original, transferred to the new piece, and do the fine work with the grinder.

[Bruce Hooke]

Hmmm...it sounds to me like a good bit of your trouble may be inadequate tools or tools that are not sharp enough. By "exact set" do you mean one of those little carving knife sets that are designed to mount in the same type of handle as an Exacto knife? If so, I'm not surprised that you are having trouble. Those sets may be good for linoleum blocks and maybe for other purposes, but I don't think they will work that well for real wood carving.

Bench (dovetail) chisels can be helpful some of the time, but proper carving chisels are much better. Among other things, proper carving chisels are designed to be sharpened at a more acute angle than bench chisels. This is possible because you are not (or should not be) banging away on the head of the chisel with a big mallet, so the edge of the blade can be more brittle, and thus take a finer edge, without breaking (chipping) in normal use.

With wood carving the cut surface is pretty much the final surface (i.e., you can't sand away mistakes), and you are often cutting across the grain or in other awkward directions. So, your tools really need to be sharp! This can be tricky with carving tools because of the inside shapes that have to be sharpened. I use a couple of sets of small Japanese waterstone "slips" to handle the insides of gouges and similar tools.

Ideally, for what you are doing, I think I'd want to have the following:

A gouge with a curve that matches the curve on the outside of the big curved letters. Note that we are talking a light carving gouge here, not a big heavy gouge designed for heavy stock removal.

A gouge with a curve that matches the tight curves on the insides of the letters. This could be a palm chisel (see below).

A small (say 1/4" or 6 mm) straight double-bevel carving chisel. A skew would be nice too but I think you'll want the straight for reasons I mention below.

Some "palm" carving tools in good sizes and shapes to get into the spaces around the letters. These are useful little tools and not that expensive either.

Maybe a small dog-leg chisel to aid in cleaning up the ground area.

A small, pointed carving knife.

You could get away with less than this. The first thing I'd probably leave out is the larger gouge because you should be able to achieve pretty much the same end with a straight blade. The dogleg is also probably not that important because many areas are going to be too small to use it in anyway.

I've had good luck with the Pfeil tools from Woodcraft. You could also look for used tools if that is your way.

The general approach I would take is to use the gouges and the straight chisel to incise the edges of the letters and other "raised" surfaces by pushing straight down as if you are starting to chop a mortise, and then start working on carving away the ground areas within the boundaries you have defined. Before doing another full trial piece you might want to spend some time just experimenting with a block of wood and carving a letter or two within a raised boundary.

[Charlie Santi]

Thanks Bruce looked at Pfeil tools from Woodcraft and will place an order today based on your suggestion. Will try another sample and post it here after the tools arrive.

[Yakhook]

Charlie,

While you're waiting for the tools, you might want to find a copy of: The Shipcarver's Handbook : how to design and execute traditional marine carvings / Jay S. Hanna. by WoodenBoat Publications.

Good orientation to and coverage of the subject.

By the way, Nice Work for a "beginner". smile.gif

Paul