Beginners carving

[bdixon]

I guess everyone has a starting point, I know this is bad, but here it is.

[Jerry V Lape]

Your work on the rest of the rifle appears to be nicely done.  But your carving pattern doesn't  add artistry to the stock.   Back up and make or copy a creative design that adds to the lines of your gun.    Practice that carving repeatedly on a quaker stock before applying to this fiream.  I think incised carving is actually the hardest to learn as it requires almost absolute perfection of cut on the first pass.  Consider  low relief carving for your first efforts and see it as live vines, foliage.  You will get there. 

[rich pierce]

You can fix those moldings easily.  I use a 3-corner file or the edge of a half-round file to straighten up molding lines.

And don't give up or get discouraged- or stop trying to improve.

[Mike Brooks]

You didn't use a dremel did you?

[Tom Currie]

Incised carving such as you attempted is best done with a V parting tool rather than a U bottom shaped tool such as you used here. Incised carving is very non forgiving,  lots of practice as Jerry suggested.

[Larry Luck]

This is a comment from someone who is working on his third and fourth rifles, so take it for what it is worth.

First thing I would do is get a piece of blank paper and transfer the existing carving onto the paper (rubbing, etc) so I would have a clear understanding of the existing carving.  Then I'd make a bunch of copies with the existing carving printed dark enough to see.  Then I'd design revised carving that puts the exising incised line in the relieved area as much as possible.  I'd also focus on smooth transitions in the arc of the scrolls.  If you can't draw it, you can't carve it.  Also check out Gary Brumfield's tutorial on his approach to carving.  Admittedly, he is carving in a different regional style.  http://www.flintriflesmith.com/images/relief.carving.for.web2.ppt  Time spent drawing the carving on rifles you admire (from RCA or Kindig's book) would probably be well spent to give you a feel for the elements of the design you want to attempt.

Rich is right that the lower buttstock molding can be cleaned up with files.  Same with the molding on the cheekpiece.

It also appears that you may have enough wood to rasp off the 1/16 or so needed to get to undisturbed wood and start over.  I did that with the tang carving on my first rifle.  It slightly altered the profile of the wrist from what I had intended, but nobody but me ever knew it happened.

Good luck.

Larry Luck

[keweenaw]

I'll concur with Larry.  There is lots of extra wood on your stock such that you can remove all the carving and start over.  Your cheek piece is almost 1/8" too proud anyway.  Incised carving is done as two sharp lines ending in a very clean Vee at the bottom.  It can be done with a Vee tool or with appropriate gouges.  Lower buttstock moldings are most easily done and kept straight by cutting them with a wide flat chisel.  You'll need to file the edges of your butt plate but that's no big deal.  Believe me, it will be easier to clean this off and start over again than to try to fix it.  AND you'll be happier in the end.

One thing you need to do more before you start again on this is to look at picture of a lot more carved guns.  The point of the carving is to both put on a decoration and to accentuate the architecture and flow of  the basic stock design.  the line you carried across the cheek piece does neither of  these things and is a feature rarely seen on original guns.  Likewise your comb molding which goes up rather than gracefully curving down to merge with the scallop at the front of the cheek piece.  You'll want to reshape the front and back edges of that cheek piece as well.

Tom

[Ed Wenger]

Listen to the excellent advice offered, and stay enthusiastic.  We've all started some where...  Larry hit the nail on the head, "if you can't draw it, you can't carve it".  Same thing goes for engraving.  Take the time and study carvings and practice drawing.  Once you feel comfortable with the drawing part, you can transfer the design to the stock, that's 80% of it.  You'll do fine!

Ed

[Larry Luck]

I forgot to mention another thing that really helped with rifle no. 2.

I used a "quaker" buttstock (maple that had been roughly duplicated to the shape of the buttstock from the lock panels to the butt).  After drawing the design several times on paper in full scale, I drew it on the quaker and carved it.  I was not satisfied, so I rasped the quaker smooth and did it twice more before attacking the rifle.  I used the quaker to practice wrist checkering also, which gave me much more confidence when I began the work on the rifle.

Seeing the quality of your stocking work, it would be a pretty easy chore for you to rasp out a quaker from a 2x6x24 piece of maple and carve several practice pieces.

I'm also a "stabber" and have made a modified version of Gary's little stamping tool from a piece of music wire and a tool handle.  The tip is radiused and is sharpened from both sides.  I hold it in my right hand and guide it with my right index finger and left thumb, rocking and pressing as I follow my guide line.





Good luck.

Larry Luck

[bdixon]

Thanks for the advice fellas, but maybe I will stick with plain guns from here on out instead of embarrassing myself.  I just need a good shooter that will go through the rhododendron and the laurel and still shoot as well as my eyesight can hold out.  Reality is I wont live long enough to become a good carver, but I will die in the woods with my rifle in my hands.  At least I hope so for that is a better way than most people go.

Brett.

[keweenaw]

Brett,

You shouldn't feel embarrassed.  More than one exceedingly good gunmaker has remodeled a stock after making some mistake or doing some carving that didn't work.  One of the things that can be very useful about this forum is that you can post pictures of ideas before they are cut in wood.  Many times fellows will draw what they are going to carve on the wood and post some pictures before they get out the chisel.  That always brings lots of helpful suggestions.  Rolf went through about 6 iterations on his tang carving for that pistol he just completed.  Pencil drawings a couple of times, and then some practice pieces before he actually did the pistol. The result was he got a fine looking piece that he wouldn't have if he had just carved his first sketch.  So don't give up!  The carving isn't nearly as hard as it looks once you figure out how it's done.

Tom

[bdixon]

I know what you are saying, but give me a small sharp instrument and look out.  On the other hand give me a heavy diesel engine and I will challenge anyone to bring it on.  My hands measure about 5 1/4 across the palms "and I have not been kind to them".  I am just not made to do some things. My wife can carve though, she made a nice 1/2 scale carousel horse in a local class,,,,,,?  Wait a minute, I am getting an idea here???

[Acer Saccharum]

Brett, if your wife will carve your rifles, she may like it. And then you can buy more gun stuff, no problem.
Tom

[Seven]

Nonsense!  Anyone can carve with enough practice.  The best thing that I did for my carving was buy a video from Nora Hall.  I got the 'basics of european wood carving' and went to town with it.  It's only about $25 and the improvements were WELL worth the investment.  Here is a picture of my first rifle stock.  I used the techniques that I learned on the Hall video.  I practiced what she taught on the video on scraps of wood and then worked on this stock.

Certainly not the best effort ever done, but it was my first. 

[bdixon]

Seven, to me your work would be too nice for me to take out and hunt with.  I am just a "plain" guy I guess, but I really like the work that I see here on the site and at Lewisburg and recently in Huntingdon county pa at the historical society get together.  My friend and I spend "days" doing primitive trekking/hunting and would feel really guilty to take a nicely carved rifle into the woods for days at a time.  Although that is the way it was in the old days.  I couldn't do it.

[Seven]

I built this rifle to hunt with.  That's it's purpose.  I'd feel guilty not helping it fulfill it's purpose in life.  Besides there is NOTHING like the feeling I had when I christened her with a whitetail. 
Anyway, I wasn't trying to get compliments on my carving, I was trying to show you that if a schmuck like me can learn to do it, so can you.   In my opinion just starting to carve is a big step.  You've taken that step and I applaud you for it. 
-chad

[keweenaw]

There is one sure way to get over the feeling that a rifle is too nice to hunt with - give it to a couple of teenage boys to use for a week or two.  After that, unless you're in jail for killing them, you'll have no problem using it.  Sometimes Mark Silver hunts with us.  One weekend we were out in heavy snow for two days.  His rifle was that Virginia rifle that has been on the cover of Muzzle Blasts and was in the Three Centuries exhibit.  Remember the motto that life is too short to hunt with an ugly gun.

Tom

[Benedict]

There is one sure way to get over the feeling that a rifle is too nice to hunt with - give it to a couple of teenage boys to use for a week or two.  After that, unless you're in jail for killing them, you'll have no problem using it.  Sometimes Mark Silver hunts with us.  One weekend we were out in heavy snow for two days.  His rifle was that Virginia rifle that has been on the cover of Muzzle Blasts and was in the Three Centuries exhibit.  Remember the motto that life is too short to hunt with an ugly gun.

Tom

I like that quote "Life is too short to hunt with an ugly gun."  Besides that all those scratches and dings are really patina and a lot of builders go to a lot of trouble to add patina to their newly built guns.  Carrying a nice gun is just another of the joys of carrying a gun.

Bruce

[bdixon]

Agreed!

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Well, if it's a nice gun that YOU yourself carved - you can always tell yourself that "there's more where that came from."  So don't worry about dragging it through the brush.

It's guns that cannot be replaced - such as the one gr. grandpa crossed the Atlantic with when coming to America - that should be babied.

Besides, "Someone" went through the trouble of making the forest beautiful - why should we go about the forest uglying it up?

[bdixon]

Reverend!!!!  Good point on G Grandfathers gun, I am 43 years old now and the value of even the seemingly least significant object, scent, sound can become most endeared to me.  An original rifle from my families past, if there was one would be highly cherished.

[msw]

concur with the consensus on both points:

as to the carving, your most valuable tool is the eraser, followed by the pencil on the other end.  then the strop, the stones and then the chisels.  money spent in the purchase or rental (i like to buy, so i can view at my convenience) is not really "spent," but rather "wisely invested."  think of the expensive stocks you don't ruin and the time you don't waste as the instructor tells you "... if you do it this way, you'll mess up for sure, so take the chisel and ... "

i really like the idea of practice pieces- i used most of mine for kindling.  if you're a congenital cheapskate (as i am) go to the wood pile and pile out some hardwood (maple, ash of maybe beech is you can find them) and spend some quality time with a belt sander, creating something which approximates the curve of the back of a stock.  smooth it out a bit, carve away, mess up if you're so inclined, re-smooth with Mr Belt Sander, and go again.

as regards the rifle too pretty to hunt with, i know of no such gun; not to say that there aren't true works of art, but they're too shiny to take to the woods- you'd spook the game.

my Grandpa's brothers rifle sits next to me in the corner, awaiting a scope mount to repair the one botched up by my dad when he was twelve.  my eldest daughter (now 26) asked if she could use it, to which i replied "Well, when i'm dead i probably won't use it much, but not 'till then."

"Mommy, Daddy won't share with me!"

(but then again, the rifle is pretty well covered with the patina of generations of use)

keep us with the carving- the work is well worth the result.

[Jerry V Lape]

Bdixon,  whimping out is not permitted!  If your paws are large just make larger handles on the chisels.  Actually they will probably be an advantage.   Take the advice here and ask for more help when you need it.  These guys love to see someone become successful.  I looked in my scrap heap for my original quaker stock.  It had about 3 iterations of the same design lined up down it's length.  It was sort of neat to see how much progress was accomplished in just those 3 efforts.  But it apparently made the firewood pile.   Low relief and incised carving are not fragile.  They will handle the woods just fine.  If you enjoyed building the rifle, think of learning to carve it as an extension of that joy.  Maybe the husband wife team could turn out great too.  There are other such teams which do exquisite work and obviously enjoy the togetherness of the common hobby.   

[B.Habermehl]

Seven, where did you buy the Nora Hall video?  BJH

[Seven]

BJH, I honestly don't remember where I bought the videos from.  I think I just did a google search and found the least expensive place to buy from.  I bought most of her instructional videos but actually stopped watching after the second one.  I was too anxious and excited to start carving.  I never did go back to watch the others.  I lent them to a good friend and fellow rifle builder and I haven't seen them since.  That's OK I have tons of his stuff that I don't plan on returning either ;-)
-chad