Incised carving tutorials?

[Larry Pletcher]

I've been playing with designs and ideas on a practice piece of walnut and am thinking about a fairly simple incised design behind the cheek piece.  Are there any incised carving tutorials on ALR?  If there is one I may have missed it.  Thanks.

Regards,
Pletch

[Blacksmoke]

Larry,  A little apprehensive about doing some relief carving on walnut?  Go ahead and take the plunge on a scrap piece of wood - it is the only way to learn! I can give you a little push-- after you draw your design use a "carving knife" to "stab" in the design instead of hammer and chisel. This will give you a  90 degree shoulder on the raised portion of the carving.  Just cut to a shallow depth with the carving knife then relive the ground around raised portion and back to the carving knife to go a little deeper.  However raised relief carving on Kentucky rifles is somewhat shallower than on European rifles of the same time period.  Once the desired depth is reached for the ground focus on the raised portion of the carving and do the "sculpting" using small gouges and scrapers.  If you want to do a little shading use a small "vein er" chisel to the job.  Then  I will clean up using a piece of folded sand paper of 320 - 600 grit.   Hope this helps,    Hugh

[David Rase]

Hugh, read Larry's heading again.  I think Larry wants some help with incised carving, not relief carving.
Larry, When it comes to incised carving, Jack Brooks is pretty much the master.  His DVD on carving has a large portion of it dedicated to incised carving.
DMR

[Larry Pletcher]

Hugh,
You read me right about being apprehensive about relief carving.  I confess that my carving element choices are at least somewhat driven by my lack of confidence.  Each time I go to the shop I try my hand at each type, experimenting with different tools and methods.  I have good tutorials for relief carving both on ALR and on DVD, but still need to gain confidence.

David,
I appreciate your coming to my defense.  It seems most tutorials are meant for relief work.  I do need help with incised carving, and will look at Brooks dvd tonight.  I have the beginning carving disk. I hope that's the one you had in mind.  Each time I work on elements of either type I find that my successes are rare and often an accident.

I have to say that I have looked at many different rifles on ALR and Cont Makers, trying to consentrate on incised carving.  I am amazed at the elegance of B. Shipman's "blockhouse rifle" with its incised carving.

So Dave and Hugh, I' ll keep trying both types of carving and see where it takes me.

Regards,
Pletch

[Tom Currie]

Larry, I recently purchased Jack Brooks video mentioned by David Rase and while it was helpful, Jack uses a series of wide sweep gouges, stabbing in in a parallel fashion, to do his incised carving, this requires many gouges to do the job  well. I would suggest purchasing a quality 60 degree V parting tool and work on tool sharpening and then practiise. I believe very quality incised carving can be done with this tool.
I push mine using my right hand to push and my left as a brake, this provides important control.   

[Blacksmoke]

Tom,   While the 60 degree parting tool will do a great job on fairly straight lines it can present some problems in a scroll design.  However this can be ,somewhat over come, by getting one that is curved in the shank and also, when sharpening , put a small "heel" just behind the cutting edge.  This will help to keep a smooth cut in the curves.  Personally I like to use the carving knife that has a slightly rounded cutting edge on the tip.  I will cut in on each side of the line at an angle and then flip out the "incised" scrap leaving the design cut into the wood with smooth edges and no "elbows".  You can very the width of your cuts this way to give another dimension within the design.   Just some more thoughts on carving.      Hugh

[Ron Scott]

Hello Larry,  I substituted for Gary at the NMLRA carving seminar recently and had occasion to discuss this subject with students. To keep life simple and pleasant, I would suggest you visit http://chrispye-woodcarving.com/slipstones/v1.html.  This tutorial on selecting and sharpening V tools for incised work is  a masterful presentation.  The author is pretty opinionated about the Brand Choice of tools but the fact that he knows the character of each manufacture attests to the amount of time that went into the research.  I think you could accomplish your carving needs with a really sharp V tool. You would need to asses if the 60 or 90 degree tools is best suited to the boldness you desire.  I have both of these angles, made by Ashely Isles. There are two distributors of the English Brand in the US.  One is, Tools for Woodworking  NY.  I think a key factor in doing good work with a V tool is to keep the direction of your cut in the best orientation of the wood grain. This will help minimize tearing, which can be a problem with any wood and likely the case with Black Walnut.  Somewhere, I have a diagram of wood grain and direction of cut. If it would help, perhaps I can locate it.

Ron

[Larry Pletcher]

Hi Ron,
Thanks very much for the web address.   I'm sure that sharpening is one of those topics at the seminar that cannot be emphaised enough.  I went through it this afternoon and have it saved for more study.
 
There's a private message on the way way.

Regards,
Larry