I am making a couple of arm chairs with cabriole legs and a shell carved on the knee of the leg. THe shell stands proud of the usual contour of the leg. I made the pattern and bandsawed the legs with a sort of plaque of extra wood standing 1/8 inch above the usual contour of the leg but now that I’m spokeshaving and rasping the leg, I’m not sure how much I should contour that plaque area prior to carving. Can anyone advise me on the method for preparing the leg prior to carving the shell? Also I made a pattern for the shell which will appear elsewhere on the chair (seat and back) but am not sue how to apply it to the curved surface of the leg’s knee. Thanks for the advice.
Jay
Replies
Jay,
Go ahead and work the top of the leg to the shape you want it to end up, but with a layer of "fat" where the shell will be. I draw the shell pattern on a piece of thin cardboard, so that it is flexible enough to bend around the curves of the leg. You might want to draw a center line down the front of the leg, and then anchor the pattern's center on this at top and bottom with two fingers. Then with your remaining fingers of that hand, press one side of the pattern down and around the leg so you can trace around the perimeter of the pattern. Repeat for the remainder of the pattern. Don't try to draw out the rays on the shell til after you relieve the waste from around it. With patterns that lay flat, like on the top of a crest, or at the center of an apron, you can cut "dashes" out of the pattern along the lines of the rays, so you can put marks thru the pattern onto the wood to be carved. But I've found that these marks end up somewhat distorted in bending the pattern around a cabriole leg, so I simply draw them in, by eye.
Ray
Thanks Ray. I guess the confusing part is exactly how that "layer of fat" should affect the contour of the leg, when it is at the rasping stage. Along that line, another question is that the cabriole leg is sawn from a piece of square stock, so the knee blocks would end up basically at right angles to each other. Since the seat is trapezoidal, the angle between the knee blocks has to be the same as the front corner angle of the seat. I have always rasped this down by eye, but have made the adjustment after the leg is attached, so I could tell if the sides of the leg were in line with the front and side rails of the seat. Now I have to do it before carving the shell. Any further advice?
Jay
Hi Jay,
I saw the "square" at the top of the leg at the flare angle of the seat. That gives you something to work toward, when working out the knee of the leg. I use a wide bench chisel in a slicing motion to bevel the side of the leg back to the correct angle, mostly from the wide part of the knee to the top, and tapering out from the knee down the leg (this area almost takes care of itself as you round up the leg).Shaping this area with its extra thickness is a matter of just fairing the curves, then re-blending after the shell is set-in and relieved. The trickiest area is right at the top of the shell, if it is hugging the top of the leg, there is little room from here to where the square begins to get a chisel into (skew carving chisel works best here for me). Final fairing can take place when the chair is assembled, and knee blocks are attached, though you won't want to mess with the shell carving at that point...
I'll look for some pictures, later, must head into town for supplies as the big storm of the century approaches. (Brace yourself Bob R!) :-)
Ray
Ray,
Ahhh, I ain't scared. That Old Lady (read Mother Nature) isn't the mutha she used to be up here. Back when I was a young lad we used to get SNOW, and I mean SNOW! Compared to the old days we now just get a tease.
Hey Jay, thanks for putting up this discussion. I'm probably a ways behind ya in the carving thang, just getting started meself.
One thing I've learned so far is that it's very addictive! Almost as bad as hoarding wood and tools. :-) I've been devouring every word from the Pinemaster. Da man knows his stuff.
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Ray,
Gotta a question for ya.
It kinda goes along with this discussion in that it involves a shell. :-) I read Mack Headleys article on carving a shell and he uses a #5 - 1¼" to rough out the field for the rays and a #3 - 1¼" for the hinge area. I don't have either one.
Sooooooooooooo, could I use a flat chisel to rough in the fields and then refine with what gouges I do have? After roughing in (assuming you're going to say yes) I was thinking I could sand to smooth out the edges left by the flat chisel. This is of course all in preparation for the final carving.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Bob,
I confess that I don't know what part of the shell that you are calling the field. Is this the fillet that defines the convex from the concave rays? Judging from the size of the gouges, could it be that you are asking about the shaping up of the shell's surface, before starting to defing the rays? This is a relief carved shell, standing proud of the surface right?
Ray
Ray,
Sorry for the misleading use of terms. See post in General Discussions re. Terms. To answer your question about my question, yes & yes. :-)
Also, I don't all have the necessary chisels/gouges to complete the shell so will have to improvise. Mack suggest several widths of gouges for the rays that I don't have. This should be interesting.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Well, Bob,
That's as clear as mud, now.
I shape the outside surface of the things with whatever seems to do the job. Most often that is a flat, rather wide, chisel. Once it is rounded up, contoured, to a satisfactory shape, I draw the rays onto the surface, sometimes freehand, sonetimes using a paper or cardboard template that is pierced with a series od "dashes" i can trace thru.
Then I use a vee chisel to define the convex and concave (if it has both) rays. Sometimes, there is a small flat fillet between the two, sometimes not. If there is, I use a fairly flat sweep gouge to remove the waste wood in the concave areas to a more or less level surface, somewhat below the still flat surface of the convex rays. The concave rays start small and grow wider and deeper as they spread, so of course, you ought to have two or three gouges of appropriate size and sweep to carve these. It it easier to carve these "smooth" so there is less sanding to do, if you have, other wise, you must use the smaller one to do the whole job, and it is hard to not end up wioth grooves and furrows sa you remove more and more wood with it.
The convex rays can be rounded over with a similar series of gouges, used "upside down". I believe this is what Mack H recommends. I have just about as good luck using a single, fairly flat sweep "fishtail" gouge, upside down (or is it inside out?) either all by itself, or with a smallish (5/16" or so) gouge to get things started on the little (hinge) end of the thing. Have also used a skew carving chisel, about 9/16", to do the same, by carving increasingly finer facets along the length of each ray to round it over. More than one way to skin a cat, or carve a scallop. The fishtail, and the skew, make it a bit easier to deal with the contrary grain on the outer rays, where it is difficult to maneuver (that word looks wrong how ever I spell it) an upside down gouge and avoid tearout.
Ray
Ray
Ray,
Well you did a mighty good job maneuvering through the mud. So I can proceed but it will be a lot more work than if I had the right tools it sounds like. That's ok, I need all the practice I can get and it's just a piece of pine anyway.
Sounds like fishtails are handy to have, perhaps if several different sizes. Be patient with me Master Ray, I'm just an overanxious newb!
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Having numerous gouges of different sweeps definitely makes most tasks easier, but in years before I had that many, I did lots of improvising. I almost always still have to improvise a little here and there. You can carve any larger radius cove with a smaller radius gouge. It just takes multiple light passes that you then have to smooth and blend together, either with a file, rasp or sandpaper wrapped around a dowel. You can carve any convex surface with a flat bench chisel. Again, it's a question of blending the facets together to make a smooth curve. It's a lot easier to fair broad curves with a spokeshave, but before I got one, I used a block plane. Practice.
Good luck.
Jay
Thanks Ray. On cabriole legs without a shell, I do it with a wide chisel, by eye, just as you have described, making the angle more acute to follow the angle of the side rails.
When a shell is involved, If I'm understanding you, you bring the curvature more in line with the side rails AFTER carving the shell and after it is attached to the chair. I would envision this as causing the edges of the shell to become more highly elevated at the sides, than in the center of the shell, (as the background around it is effectively lowered more at the sides). Is that correct? Do you then re-carve the shell to cause it to drape over the contour of the leg as you lower the backgound?
Thanks for clarifying.
Jay
Jay,
Actually I was trying to describe doing this preliminary shaping before the shell is carved. That is what I was describing as shaping with a layer of "fat" on the knee, said layer being the thickness of the draped shell. After the perimeter of the shell is laid out on the shaped up, but slightly (1/8-3/16") oversized knee, it is then set in or relieved, by making vertical, or perpendicular, (to the surface of the leg) cuts and paring away the waste wood outside the perimeter of the shell. Once you have removed the waste out to the sides of the leg, you should be near enough to where the knee blocks want to be, to fair them together with the "new" surface of the leg, that you defined by relieving the shell.
I haven't found any photos of knee carvings of shells in progress, will try to attach one or two finished examples.
Ray
Ray,
Thanks.
I worked on it last night and when I get home I'll take a photo and post it so you can see the leg in progress. I think I've pretty much figured it out. The only thing I'm still not completely clear on is how I will make the sides of the leg match the acute angle of the seat corner (instead of being 90 degrees) once the shell is in place. If it stays 90 degrees, the outside knee block will flare out away from the side rail too much, and if I rasp down the background around the shell, the shell will become more highly elevated on the outside edge than the inside edge.
I was thinking I might make the side and front rails, dry assemble it and with the leg in place, rasp it down to match the seat angle, and then disassemble to complete carving the shell details. Make sense? Please let me know if this sounds correct.
I have so far outlined the shell from a cardboard template which I sort of wrapped around the knee. I then used gouges of matching sweeps to cut in along the outline, and relieved the background so the shell outline stands 1/8-3/16 proud of the surface. Haven't started to carve the coves yet. Jay
Right, Jay,
You do need to get that side knocked down before carving the shell. If that means you dry assemble the seat frame, and trace around the knee block onto the leg's top, before working the leg to shape, then do that. I just shave the thing down by eye, after sawing the square at the top of the leg to the proper angle. That gives you something to go by.
Ray
By the way, do you have any photos of such legs that you have done? (Especially at different stages)?
Jay
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