Stabbing in

[Uncle Alvah]

While the name, stabbing in, seems clear enough, I do not know anything about the preferred tools to cut the line, straight or curved, or the process itself.

[rich pierce]

I just made 3 new gouges for this purpose and will post some photos later. Most commercial gouges if stabbed straight down into a piece of wood, leave a cut that encompasses  between 1/3 and 1/2 of a circle. I prefer much less, an arc that covers maybe 1/4 of a circle of small diameter or even less when the radius is of the circle is large. Go look at Curtiss’ posting of his carving to see him stabbing in some carving.

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=46527.25

Here are the 4 gouges I use most.  The one on the right is a commercial one.  Shown are stab cuts.  I will make one more of even smaller radius.
 

[SingleMalt]

Gary Brumfield shows this on his website, flintriflesmith.com .   The PowerPoint link on the "Tools and Techniques" page should be helpful because it shows the steps for relief carving from drawn design to finished product.


 http://www.flintriflesmith.com/ToolsandTechniques/shopmadechisels.htm

[dogcatcher]

There are a few good tutorials on ALR.  Best way to search is use the word and "site:http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php"
or in this case stabbing site:http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php 

Using the Google search function is better than most of the forum search buttons. 

[elkhorne]

Patrick Sullivan has some neat YouTubes that show how to make a variety of small chisels and gouges. Take a look.
elkhorne

[deepcreekdale]

You might also want to check out Jack Brooks video on "Beginning Carving". He demonstrates it and also has a list of gouges he considers most useful. I find the sweeps he recommends a little large for the most part, I tend to prefer smaller gouges like Rich showed in his post but you may differ. The larger sweeps aren't bad for stabbing in but have limited uses otherwise. But, the process is the same regardless of the size of the gouge.