Learning to carve

[Tim]

Hello Good Folks,

Can someone learn the basics of relief carving a rifle stock with lumber from a lumber store like Lowes or Home Depot.  What basic chisels do I need to buy to get started?
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Tim

[bnail]

Wad just on my way to look for a carving tutorial when i saw this.  Will be reading this with interest

[Mike Lyons]

I wouldn’t recommend pine.   Maple is hard and in my opinion a little forgiving.  Kimbler has a carving kit that I would recommend.   It’s a cast example of a carving and a section of a stock to work on. I like a small v gouge and hammer and an 1/8” chisel made from hss.  I have several sets of chisels and gouges but I seem to only use two or three go to tools for carving. Some like to stab in the outline with thin stabbing tools and some use a v gouge.  It’s hard to answer your question.  There’s some really good carvers on here that can advise you better than me on specific Lowe’s wood and chisel choices.

[Goo]

Something with fine grain like maple if i didnt want to spend money i would use fire wood splits and plane them down with a hand plane to get practice pieces.

[Ky-Flinter]

There are several tutorials on relief carving in the tutorial section..... http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?board=474.0

-Ron

[Mike Brooks]

Also, practice on rounded pieces similar to the shape of a gun as apposed to flat. The hardest plain maple is what you're looking for. Drawing on a correctly styled pattern is probably the most difficult part for beginners. Start with something like traditional; Lancaster carving and duplicate it exactly, don't go all fantasy.

[J Henry]

  I would start by learning the basics,flat board, then start branching out to more difficult projects.Hard wood is much more forgiven than soft,IMMHO.  Check this out,Decorative Woodcarving   by,Jeremy Williams  I.S.B.N. 0-94681947-5 AND Sharp tools or don't start,

[Tim]

  I would start by learning the basics,flat board, then start branching out to more difficult projects.Hard wood is much more forgiven than soft,IMMHO.  Check this out,Decorative Woodcarving   by,Jeremy Williams  I.S.B.N. 0-94681947-5 AND Sharp tools or don't start,

I ordered this book Today. Now I’ve got to get some basic tools to get
Me started.

[PPatch]

When I first began carving I bought the densest poplar I could find at the Big Box store. It is a poor substitute for maple, but it is inexpensive and one can learn a lot on it. Mike is right about shaping your practice wood as carving on a curved surface is really different. You will find that there a lot of approaches to carving, everyone does it a bit differently. As for tools it is the same deal, different carvers, different tools used. You will want a couple of flat chisels and some gouges, you actually don't need a whole tool chest filled with every known gouge. I bought gouges as I felt I needed them, several #3 sweeps in different widths, a #5 in 1/4 inch, a skew chisel. As I worked I added what I thought would help. Stay away from so-called "carving kits" as those gouge kit contain mostly what isn't moving off the shelves, the stuff no one buys, so you end up with one gouge that is useful and a handful that aren't. Buy individually according your perceived need. Carving tools are expensive, yes, but they will last a lifetime if treated right.

Don't overlook eBay as a source, there are sometimes bargains to be found. It happens because the children of some woodwork put his tools up for sale, or they discover grandfathers old tool chest and decide to turn the contents into cash. I bought almost all my hand planes off of eBay, bought the ones in dire need of restoring and did whatever they needed to be put back in service.

Good luck with your carving, keep at it and keep your pencil sharp, it is the tool you'll use the most. Below is a pix of what I ended up with as my carving tools...



dave

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[David Rase]

Here is a new carving tutorial from Eric von Aschwedge.  Eric shows you how to perform relief carving with a minimal amount of tools. 
http://www.vonaschwegeflintlocks.com/erics-carving-tutorial.html
David

[oldtravler61]

  David thanks for posting this. Very good . Oldtravler

[Tim]

Good stuff Everybody. Helps this Amateur out for sure.

[dogcatcher]

Learning to draw and to sharpen are the first two steps of carving.  If you cannot draw a design, you cannot carve it, if you cannot properly sharpen your chisels, you will be able to slowly cut at the design, but you will probably lose interest.  I suggest you try to find a woodcarver in your area and ask for a sharpening lesson, or few dozen lessons.   It has been 55 years since someone showed me how to sharpen, but even today I can remember the struggle I had until this guy took the time to sharpen my chisels.  It was like night and day after I used the chisels he had sharpened for me. 

I still cannot really draw, but I can copy and use a tracing method, and make some changes so that the design is mine.  Or I con the artists in the family and my wife draws the design following my instructions.   

[Craig Wilcox]

I ordered a piece of 4/4 maple from Constantines, in Fort Lauderdale, FL.  Used to go there to get my stuff, but a long ways from freezing cold Ohio!
I got a nice piece of very hard sugar maple, 4/4 x 8 x 48.  So I will subdivide it, and part, as Mike suggested, I will curve.  A lot better than trying to practice on the actual stock.  The piece has NO curl, but the wood itself is great.  I can even try out a few finishing techniques, though of course my Lehigh stock would take stain differently.
Their wood is great, and I do wish that they still carried really good tools.
www.constantines.com

[Long John]

Tim,

As Dave said Eric's tutorial is very good.  I use a different selection of tools but essentially the same general strategy.  For example, in relieving the background I first us a shallow gouge across the grain before I take to the flat chisel.  My scrapers are a little different.  (Hmmmm.  Maybe that's why Eric's carving is so much better than mine.  I wonder.)

You don't need 97 different chisels with matching handles.  I bet I do 95% of my carving with 5 or 6 tools:  a light mallet, a 1/8th " v parting tool (veiner), a shallow #3 gouge and a 3/8" flat chisel.  I also have a small set of palm chisels that I use for "special spots" where I need a slightly finer cutting approach.

Buy the best tools you can afford and get them razor (shaving) sharp.  Before I use a chisel I make sure it can shave hair off my fore-arm.

Finally, a maple 1x4 from Home Depot or Lowes will do nicely for initial practice.  In the inletting demos I have done at the Gunmakers' Fair, most were done using a maple board from one of those two stores.

Good Luck,

JMC
John Cholin

[Mike Brooks]

Everybody carves differently, using different techniques. I use roughly the same tools as Eric + or - a few others depending on what I'm striving for.. I watched kiblers video with his stabbing in method, very effective results but you have to have a large spread of tools. I have always stabbed some but not as much as he does, I'd probably go more his way if I wanted to invest in a bunch more tools.  You can't argue Kibler's the results for sure.
 I never practiced and some of my early guns show it. Actually the better I learned to draw the traditional designs the better my carving got. I still to this day don't consider myself an outstand carver...maybe I should practice?

[David Rase]

When I wanted to start carving rifles my wife made me sign up for the NMLRA gunsmithing class from John Bivin's back in the late 80's.  John taught us the stabbing in method and also to use a carving knife to remove the background.  I used this method for many years.  Later on I signed up for Wallace Gusler's carving class.  Wallace had us remove the background with chisels.  I had to force myself to try a different method of removing the background.  The biggest ah ha moment from Wallace was to remove the background using a chisel with the micro bevel down.  I learned that by applying a bit of downward pressure at the bevel while removing the background helped to smooth and burnish the background thus speeding up the process of cleaning up the backgound. 
David   

[Mike Lyons]

I still to this day don't consider myself an outstand carver...maybe I should practice?

Maybe not Mike but,  your carvings and rifles are consistently indistinguishable from what an original would have looked like.  Through your tutorial, you have probably taught more people how to build a great rifle that is a spot on representation of an original than any book.  I think good carving is in the eye of the beholder and can be overdone. Some of the best carvers and gunbuilders produce guns that look like a machines carved them.  They are fit for a King.  Very few can carve that precise or at that level and some don’t want a gun that looks like it was made under the gun for a King.  It reminds me of the gold AK’s in the Middle East.  They aren’t practical and in 200 years from now will probably be the only surviving AKs making it look like they were the norm.