Buttstock Carving Design Check

[Robert Wolfe]

I am laying out the design for the butt carving on a youth-sized rifle I am building for my daughter. I would appreciate critiques before I start cutting. I laid it out yesterday evening but can already see some things that I want to change. It is amazing what walking away and coming back to it will do for your perception – it looked great when I quite last night but not so today. It also looks surprising different in the photograph. All the curves that aren’t quite right seem to jump out! I would appreciate your thoughts as I revise and clean up the layout this week. Probably won’t have a chance to carve on it until next weekend.



My carving experience is limited and this will be the most complicated I have attempted to date (gun number 3). As an FYI here are the wrist carving (needs to be cleaned up) and the lockside wrist/butt carving. I don’t plan on a patchbox so I carried an extra volute back onto the buttstock for a little added interest. There is a little striping that will have to carry the rest of the butt.

[Tony Clark]

Looks pretty good to me. I would just work on rounding up the lines a little more to get a better flow with things, couple kinks here and there but overall not bad. Another thing I might consider doing is lowering that cheekpiece some going up towards the comb so as to improve the flow of it, at least lean it back so the end of it points at the lower corner of the buttplate tang. Also the back end of the cheepiece stands kind of straight up and down I would lean that back a bit. I like to have the carving kind of flowing off the back of the cheekpiece personally. What you did behind the tang looks good. Good luck, Regards, TC

Also now that I look at it a little more, that squiggly that runs up to the inside corner of the buttplate, I'm not so sure that works. Not sure what I would do there. I know what you mean about things looking different after you go away and come back later. Sometimes laying something down and coming back later is a great aid in preventing your work from surpassing your judgement.

[J. Talbert]

Robert,

 I sent you an email with a couple spot circled on the photo that caught my eye.

Hope that helps

Jeff

[rich pierce]

Couple of things.  First, the execution of the tang carving looks superb, but it also looks 2x too high compared to originals.  I got dinged a couple of times on having carving that is too high.  It's amazing how they get 3-D on carving that's a lot less than a spark plug gap on originals.

Second, have you thought how you're going to terminate the upper frond that ends in a scroll?  It's going to start out as raised then will go into an incised scroll.  What will become of the 3-D part of the scroll? I would make that upper 3-D concave scroll disappear into nothing and have the squiggle that goes up to the heel (like Schroyer) come right off the upper right C-scroll.



I drew a couple squiggles near some spots that look a little flat or kinked.  But most of the design is really good, balanced, and the lower right part is particularly well done, IMHO.

[Robert Wolfe]

Rich,

Thanks for your comments. Not sure I completely follow your comments regarding the upper volute and the tendril that goes up to the buttplate. The volute is incised like the one I showed on the wrist. I was thinking the tendril would be incised and then relieved on the buttplate side (yes, like Schroyer) but I see there is a problem where I would need to connect up with the lower carving elements. Is that what you meant? I guess I need something there to join the upper and lower halves of the carving to allow me to relieve the background. I had not seen that, thanks. I suppose to that the tendril could be simply incised rather than relieved on the one side.

On the wrist carving my light is raking at a severe angle causing shadows to make it to look very proud. If you look at the bottom photo you can see a bit of the wrist carving and it doesn't look so high. Under a 16th.  [edit: I measured it last night at about 1/32]

[Robert Wolfe]

Tony, thanks for you commments. I see what you mean about the adjusting the cheek piece line so that it flows more towards the buttplate tang. As it is now it does not complement the flow of the carving. Good call.

[Acer Saccharum]

I see a large area that wants more something in it.

It's to the right of the main scroll. Perhaps you could extend that little leaf that's coming off your main scroll to fill a little more of that wide open space. You don't need to fill the space with carving, not at all. Just a little more something to the right will use that wide open space a little more. Even 1/2 inch more of leaf will make a big difference in how that open space looks.

In any design, you need to have a dialogue between elements and open space. In my opinion, if you used a little more of that open area, it wouldn't look so empty, you'd have more of a conversation going between space and carving. A little extension of the leaf, maybe an incised tendril coming off the top scroll might do the trick.

Tom

[P.Bigham]

 Its hard to critique like this ,as Rich has already stated you're tang carving is very good just to High.On the drawing behind the cheek I would suggest drawing the major scrolls in before adding in the details. Draw in the majors scrolls and  get the flow of the lines mathing the profile of the Rifle. Then step back from the Rifle and use you're eye to see if all is in proportion then come in and add the detail. then step back once more and look at the lines. Keep comparing with the Originals. Hope this may help ,my 2 cents worth.

[Dave B]

Robert,
I really like the folksiness of the layout you have here. I like what the others have commented on. It is only a couple of the lines that have some awkward spots that could be tweaked a bit. I will say that the beginning of the main volute should have a flowing out effect with the the lines going from a converging point opening up as they flow back. I would loose the incise elongated chip detail and stick with a single line for the start right by the cheek piece. I tweaked your drawing to show what I am talking about. Note that the lines progressively diverge the further out they go. Try to avoid parallel lines. Be thinking as mentioned before about how you will carve the volutes. Note I would not join the insice line to the  wedge cut and would add a detail a little further out to fill the blank space left. It creates the impression of a leaf under the lobe you had hanging out there.
But all said and done I  like the way your headed on your project here.

[Robert Wolfe]

Wow, great feedback. Thanks so much. Lots to think about. And Dave, thanks for the redraw. It really made what you said about parallel lines clear.

[Tony Clark]

That looks great Dave, really pleasing to the eye. Regards, TC

[Acer Saccharum]

Dave, thanks for your very thoughtful and generous drawing and description. Well said.

Tom

[keweenaw]

I agree entirely with Tony's comment about cutting some wood off your cheek piece.  The profile of it looking from the back should be hollowed out, not flat.  Doing that will curve the transition line toward the rear and flow into  the top line of your carving.  This is an architectural feature that Schreyer used fairly consistently.

That sinking shade line against the rear of the cheek piece  that Dave took out in his sketch would be difficult to make work.  You'll be a lot happier if you do it as flow into the volute.

Tom

[Robert Wolfe]

Thanks Snyder. I'm going to try to address the cheek piece and then go back to the carving design.

Bruce, sent you an email regarding your drawing.

[Pete G.]

Whenever you get a design sketched out, look at it in a mirror. I can be a little disheartening, but it really makes odd areas pop out.