Carving

[hortonstn]

How far from the design should you cut back and taper the background.
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Thanks
Paul

[L. Akers]

Hey Paul,
 I don't know that there is a "rule" regarding length of taper.  I will lower the entire background behind the cheekpiece to make true bas-relief carving because there is not enough room to taper into the carving.  The rest of the carved areas I will run a taper out to about 1 1/4" leaving the elements about 1/32" or so high.   You want your taper long enough so the carving looks like bas-relief instead of the incised relief it actually is.  The prouder the carving stands, the longer the taper must be.  Be sure your tapers don't take a dive at the base of the elements.   I look at areas between carvings where the tapers run in opposite directions ie, between the lock panel teardrop and the wrist carving, in profile to see if the uncarved area looks " raised".  If it does, I scrape it lower.

[Curtis]

Paul, IMHO just don't cut your carving too deep, and taper it out until it looks pleasing to your eye.  Shouldn't have to go too far out from your carving in most cases.

Curtis

[Mark Elliott]

Where Carving runs into carving, such as tang to comb or cheek, there is no taper.  In that case, you take all the wood in between down the same amount.

[Acer Saccharum]

Carving should really be rather shallow. When the gun is stained and finished, the carving will stand out by the nature of the corners holding more finish, hence a dark outline around the carving. The background leading up to the carving should follow the shape of the stock, follow the contour of the gun, in other words.



And finished:

[deepcreekdale]

Acer is exactly right. You should bring all your background down to the same level to follow the outline of the stock. Most of the time if you taper your background, the end result looks lumpy. Essentially you finish shape the stock twice. Once before the carving, than again after outlining the carving. it isn't very deep however, 1/32 to 1/16 will normally be enough. A really good book to have is "Gunsmithing Tips and Techniques" which has a number of excellent articles by the late John Bivins. I think it is the best source to clearly explain the process.