Comments

1. 
   roman1766 | May 01, 2019 09:41am | #1

   I've been fortunate to study with Chris Pye as well (up at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship) and used his book "Letter Carving in Wood" extensively to learn the basics. I've since then done a fair amount of lettering and as Clark says it's a "...matter of practice". You'll get better and better the more you do it (like anything) and you'll develop your own techniques for lettering (although mine are deeply rooted in those I learned from Chris Pye).

   One thing I've found is that you have to take the particular species of wood into account depending on the size of the lettering; obviously a very open-grain wood like oak is difficult for small lettering (at least for me). I find that much smaller than 1/2" high and it gets very difficult to cut clean letters not affected by the grain (although I've not tried lettering in boxwood which takes very fine detail). Walnut is great, so is cherry. I did a large commission in some kind of fir (they were old panels from an existing room) that was a challenge to work with due the species and the fact that about half the panels were oriented with vertical grain (ideally, the grain runs horizontally when lettering since most letter parts run vertically).

   Also, lettering is not like writing - you don't complete each letter and word in order. After laying the whole thing out you make all of the same cuts in batches. For example, if you are using a 20mm carving chisel for the vertical elements in the capital letters, you go down the line and make all the initial central vertical cuts using that chisel. Then you come back and make all the right-hand angle cuts, then all the left-hand angles to complete those vertical elements. You're really "building" letters, not writing them, just like if you're cutting mortises and tenons for a table.

   Finally, Clark mentions it and I'll second it - you need double-bevel carving chisels to letter not single-bevel bench chisels. I've got probably a dozen of them (#1 sweep...flat...all Pfeils) ranging from 3mm up to 35 mm along with a few fishtails.

   And of course the rule with any woodworking tool applies here as well - sharp, sharp, SHARP!!