Replies

1. 
   joinerswork | Jun 25, 2008 12:43am | #1

   Chris,

   Sounds like you have carved your curlicues in relief-that is, the field or background has been cut away, leaving the curlicues standing proud of the field.  A commonly accepted practice for areas within the margins of the carving is to "stipple" the background.  Stippling is simply the stamping of a regular pattern into the field, covering or camoflaging the gouges and dings.  A stippling tool may be easily made by filing a crosshatch or checkered pattern onto the head of a common 16d nail with a fine tri-cornered file, and grinding the point off square.  It is used by placing the head on the background, and lightly striking with a hammer. Move the tool around, stamping as you go, til an evenly distributed pattern is created.  A smaller tool can be made by simply rounding over the point of a nail, so that a shallow dent, or depression is made every time the tool is struck.

   By the way, a good book on carving is Paul Haslucks Manual of Traditional Woodcarving, available from Dover Publications.  Lots of good information on the hows and whys of the craft.

   It takes a fair amount of practice to carve smoothly enough that sanding is not needed.  The choice of wood has a big effect on the end result as well, esp for a novice.

   Ray

1. 
   cwalvoord | Jun 25, 2008 08:58pm | #5

   Ray,
   Thanks for the stippling suggestion and the book recommendation. As you surmised, it is a relief carving as you can see from the pictures I posted later. I thought about stippling the background but the relief pattern matches a pattern on six of the tiles of the fireplace surround and the background on those six tiles and the rest of the tiles in the surround are smooth. So I thought it would look better if the background in the carving was smooth as well.I will check out the book. The only reference I have right now is the Fredrick Wilbur book on Carving Architectural Detail in Wood, which I like a lot but it is not very often that one book answers all your questions.BTW, you mentioned the importance of the choice of wood. The mantle is walnut which is good to work with in general and seems pretty easy to carve but I don't have much of a basis for comparison. Thoughts?Thanks again.
   Chris

   Edited 6/25/2008 3:39 pm ET by cwalvoord

1. 
   joinerswork | Jun 26, 2008 03:55pm | #6

   Chris,

   Nice straight grained walnut is as good a wood to carve as any.  It will turn your hands black, but I bet you already know that.

   It's a challenge to get a relieved background perfectly flat.  Easiest is to separately  carve, then apply, the detail onto an already flat surface. 

   Working in the solid, a router, or router plane, can be used to set in, or lower, the ground, prior to carving the detail, but the smaller areas defy anything but tiny carving tools, carefully used.

   Ray

1. 
   cwalvoord | Jun 26, 2008 04:18pm | #7

   Ray,
   Do you have a good on-line source for either small carving tools or small files? I am also using a scratch stock on this project for the first time and wanted some small files for shaping the cutters. As you pointed out a needle file would also be useful for making a background stempler.
   Thanks
   Chris

1. 
   dkellernc | Jun 26, 2008 07:10pm | #8

   Chris - If you choose to stipple (the historical carving term is "frosting", and the tools are, naturally, called "Frosting Tools") the background but don't want to try your hand at making your own, http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com has a large number of designs to choose from.  A traditional motif is a 6-pointed star, found on a lot of Samuel McIntire architectural and furniture carving.

   They also sell quite a range of carving tools.  Woodcraft sells the Pfiel "mini" tools, as well as several other brands.  If you want small, fine-cut files, perhaps the best place to look is jewelry making supply stores on the web.  They generally have a vast number of sizes, profiles and tpi to choose from.

   Finally - for cleaning up your carving.  Based on the photos, I would suggest that you carefully sharpen a small 60 degree v-tool until it is beyond scary sharp, then carefully and lightly outline your carving to get some of the torn grain and splinters out.  Then, use a couple of very small scrapers to level and smooth the wood in the background between the carved features.  You can make these scrapers yourself by cutting up a larger cabinet scraper, or you can purchase them from some of the stores mentioned above.  In general, it works much better than sandpaper, because unless you intend to sand the entire carving and all features, the sanded walnut will look quite different than the unsanded parts, and will even show up after finishing if the finish is to be a thin oil/varnish blend.

2. 
   cwalvoord | Jun 27, 2008 09:38pm | #10

   Thanks much to all. I will keep working on it...
   Chris

3. 
   KeithNewton | Jun 28, 2008 06:15am | #11

   I have a pretty good assortment of little tools that I use for this. Most are made from something like old disposable knives for the small planer, cut in half, then ground like a skew, right and left, just like a chisel, then I roll a burr. When I roll a burr, for a burnisher, I have an assortment of things around that I use. Some are made from shock-absorber or roller bearings, and even drill rods. Anything smooth and round, harder than the other steel. I lay the brunishing rod on the bench, and let it roll back and forth as I start with the cutting edge down at about 45º then bring it up to 90º in a back and motion. Some of these tools may be square, or with a slight thumbnail grind. To use them, you hold the tool about 80º to the face, and pull it along, which orients the cutting edge down at about 10º. If you are good at sharpening, you can really smooth up the ground quick and easily when you get the hang of it. Oh by the way, the steel it too hard to roll a burr in the planer blade without chips breaking out. However, if you let it get red as you re-sharpen each time, that will anneal that part of the blade enough to allow the burr.Also, I have made a good assortment of little disk sander pads that I use in little right angle die-grinders or dremel type tools. I used an assortment of little diamond burr, and or stones, that I sprayed with spray contact, then attached felt pads which were totally saturated with spray contact. For the sanding disk, I have an assortment of punches from 1/2" to 1 1/2", that I use to punch what I need out of 6" sanding disk that I use for the RO sander. THese little disk stay on good, and cut fast and clean. TO remove them, I have to heat them by pealing them right after use. The paper splits if the glue is cool.

4. 
   joinerswork | Jun 26, 2008 08:31pm | #9

   Chris,

   What dkeller said.

   Ray

2. 
   SteveSchoene | Jun 25, 2008 06:32am | #2

   One useful tool for sanding is a foam nail board.  They come in a number of grits, and can have the tips cut to work easily into particular shaped areas. 

1. 
   saschafer | Jun 25, 2008 01:00pm | #3

   I was trying to picture "foam nail board," and all I could think of was a piece of styrofoam insulation with a bunch of nails sticking up through it, and for the life of me couldn't understand what it had to do with sanding....

   Then I figured it out.

   -Steve

    

2. 
   cwalvoord | Jun 25, 2008 04:19pm | #4

   Thanks Steve - that is a great idea. I worked on it a bit last night using some small rubber detail sanding blocks of a few different profiles and an old credit card to hold the sandpaper but a nail board would have been a lot easier for some spots.Just for perspective, here are a couple of pics.
   Chris

   
3. 
   CarvinChris | Jun 28, 2008 05:24pm | #12

   Chris,

   You received some excellent answers to your question in this thread.

   I'll address your question about sanding and carvings.

   Basically, it's your carving, sand if you want to.  Only a stuffed shirt snoot in the air traditionalist would say no to sanding, controlling your tool to achieve the desired effect without the need to sand is the 'proper' way to carve.  Maybe so, but as Ray pointed out, it takes a lot of practice to accomplish that goal. 

   Nowadays sanding is becoming more so a part of regular woodcarving.  There are folks in the woodcarving club I belong to that regularly sand specific parts of their carving to achieve the desired effects; say for example, the blending of the forearm to the upper arm on an 'in the round' figure.

   You can sand with paper, riffler files, jewelers files, power carvers (could be Dremels) with saffire burrs, sandpaper drums or carbide burrs that will leave a smooth surface.  The foam board mentioned earlier works too.  Some of our members use them to 'age' a painted carving, a couple of quick, light passes removes some paint from the higher surfaces simulating 'wear and tear'.  Finish off with some dark paste wax, the affect is awesome.

   The bottom line is; it's your carving, whatever method you use to get to the desired finished effect is ok.  Besides, nobody has to know your secrets if you don't want to tell them!! :)

   Dkellernc mentioned to you about the 60 degree v-tool for clean up work and I agree.  If you want to really make crisp lines where your relief meets the background wood, get yourself a 45 degree v-tool. It will get into the nooks and crannys for a better outline of the relief.  What this does is present some shadow areas to your carving which will highlight the more noticeable features of your carving. 

    This leads me to your "tip of the day": Woodcarving, especially relief, is a 'play' of light and shadows.  The contrast between the lighter areas and the darker areas of your carving presents depth, the resulting illusion is what makes the carving appealing to the eye of the beholder.

   I hope I've been helpful to you,

   Chris.   

   
   

   ---

   Edited 6/28/2008 10:26 am ET by CarvinChris

   
1. 
   dkellernc | Jun 28, 2008 05:39pm | #13

   Apologies, Chris.  CarvinChris is correct on the optimal v-tool for cleaning up relief carvings - narrower (i.e., lower angle) is better, though in some sense they're a bit harder to sharpen than more open Vs.

   Regarding preparing scrapers for cleaning the ground around relief carvings - Rob Millard has an excellent explanation about how to get a good burr that's consistent and sharp - see his weblog on the subject:  http://www.americanfederalperiod.com.

   Finally, regarding sanding - How you finish your carvings is entirely your choice.  One very famous (and successful) carver, Ian Norbury, sands most all of his carvings, and not just as a surface treatment.  He typically uses sandpaper as part of the shaping process.  In my case, I don't do it, because my carving is almost exclusively done as reproductions of 18th century antiques.  Most of these are not sanded, because while one form of sandpaper was available as early as the mid 18th century, and carvers had been using natural abrasive materials much earlier than that (dutch rush and pumice blocks being two good examples), the typical carved furniture ornamentation of the period was not finished with an abrasive.

   There are probably several reasons for this, but one big one is that these antiques were finished under considerable time pressure, and sanding is labor intensive and tedious.  Further, supplies during the 18th century were quite expensive in relation to today, and abrasives get used up very quickly, while scrapers and carving tools wear out much more slowly.

   Finally, there is at least some aesthetic motivation not use an abrasive as a final surface treatment before a film finish - even light sanding typically obliterates tool marks, and leaving those (assuming they're not REALLY conspicuous) differentiates a piece preapred by hand using traditional carving tools and those prepared with CNC machines.  To some customers, this is important.

1. 
   CarvinChris | Jun 28, 2008 11:39pm | #14

   D.,

   You are still correct with your assertion about 60degree v-tools. they will clean up and blend the relief and the backdrop, ridding the piece of nicks and shavings in an otherwise tough area to clean.

   Smaller v-tools such as the 45 and 35 degree v's in the 4-6mm range are excellent for defintion and separation of the relief and backdrop.  With these tools only the apex of the v is cutting the wood, not the sides.

   One reason some carvings aren't sanded is the flat plane effect.  Meaning, as one carves with a gouge (shallow) one will end up with a number of different planes in a given area.  When light shines on these planes, some become brighter while others not so bright, depending on their relation to the light and how that light illuminates the plane.  The light and shadow effect I wrote about earlier.

   The only tools I find difficult to sharpen are 1 and 2mm v-tools and veiners...they drive me nuts!!!  But when ya needs em they're invaluable.

   Gooday,

   Chris.