First timer playing with tools

[RobKimball]

Howdy folks!
After browsing around this forum I decided to order one of Rick's beginner kits, which I just opened up today. I've been woodworking long enough to know how impressively sharp those tools come!

This is, however, my first attempt to do any fine detail hand work such as this... and it's tougher than I expected! I hope to practice some fine relief carving that I can eventually work into the furniture I build.

Here's a few images and questions: in the first (the Appalachian Trail logo) I tried to emulate the scalloped background I have seen so many of you produce so uniformly... mine is pretty inconsistent! Any tips on making it more even?

The second (a simple Celtic knot)has a serious case of the fuzzies. Would you recommend smaller tools, or some kind of sanding/abrasive to smooth things out?

Thanks!
Rob

[gene-messer]

Way to go Rob .. you did good .. keep it up and your starting off well ..

Remember .. practice .. practice , practice ..

Way to go ..

Gene

[Iowa Carver]

Rob, welcome to the forum. Your doing great.

Corey

[Ron T]

Hello Rob,

Just want to welcome you here, but I'm sorry I can't answer your questions. You might want to search the posts. As far as the "fuzzies are concerned, I think it has to do with softer wood. A sanding sealer would work, I think.

[doris]

hi welcome :-) ... the fuzzies come after a while of carving, when the tools start to become dull. you need care to keep them sharp. so, do strop reguarly, or at least when the first fuzzies appear... usually its best to choose the largest tool for a cut which you can put in the area...
to get the background more even, use a shallower gouge, and try make cuts all same depth. to even out more, you can cut in a second go all ridges left by the first go of cutting... hope this helps

[squbrigg]

Welcome aboard. You have a good start with those two, so keep on with the practice. You have to get use to your tools and experiment with how they cut and how the wood works. Both of your projects have a good start, and you can clean them up by going a bit deeper in the background and then by cleaning up the edges and surface of the shapes, either by gentle carving or sandpaper.

Practice, practice, practice.

Bob

[chuckt]

Hey there - great start! I'm a relative newbie myself and still have challenges with the "fuzzies" myself. I'll suggest a great resource for starting relief carvers - Chris Pye's book on relief carving (exact title escapes me - but its the one where he walks you through a low and high relief of a fish). There are a couple factors I think in smoothing things out for you:

1. Sharpness - so even though your tools came nice and sharp keep stropping correctly (ie - don't lift the bevel as you get to the end of the stroke - this will round off and dull the edge) as you carve.

2. As someone else mentioned - use progressively shallower gouges to take down the ridges between the gouge cuts.

3. Grain orientation - which I am sure as a woodworker you already know about and understand.

4. And this one I think is key - use slicing cuts. This entails a slight rotating or side to side movement of the edge as you cut. As opposed to just driving the edge straight into the wood. This helps a LOT as your smoothing the ridges of the background down to get nice clean cuts. [Edit - this is the same principle that makes a skewed hand plane cut work so nicely.]

Hope this helps. Keep carving - you've made a great start.

ChuckT

[RobKimball]

Howdy all,
Thanks for the warm welcome and the tips!
I'll be sure to keep asking questions here, all the advice you've given so far is great! I know I need a heck of a lot of practice before I am ready to put a piece of furniture "under the knife"!

[Tom-H]

Welcome Rob, Glad you found your way here. I believe everything that has been suggested. The only thing I could add is about 100 more "practices". Meanwhile, the wood you carve can also contribute to the "fuzzies". Try to use the best basswood you can get. Also as a way to get rid of some of the "fuzzies" until you get all that practice in; you may scrub the carving with a denture brush and liquid cleanser and water - especially if you plan to paint the carving. But you've got a real good start....Good job!

Tom H

[lorax]

Hey Rob
I am with chuckt on the grain orientation being a contributor to fuzzies. And a combo of making sure you aren't going against or up the grain, and a skew (slicing) cut can take care of those.

I have been carving in the round primarily for about twenty years, and am getting more into relief work, so I am getting some things that I am not reallly used to. So I have an extra piece of wood that will carve as a practice to what I am about to try on the real piece, if I am unsure how to go about it. You can just draw a copy of the area you are unsure about, then you can figure out things like which cut to do first, which tools to use, how to work the area so you dont make it too brittle, etc. Everybody always says to practice practice practice, but not alot of people say how to practice, so that is what I came up with, because I like to be working toward a finished piece, even though it is practice. I just started an Acanthus panel in butternut, a couple weeks ago, because I want to know how to do this effectively in the worst way. I ended up scrapping the whole thing this weekend, because I just couldnt get it. I figured out that one of my problems was that I started with a much smaller design on a very grainy wood, which wouldn't be a problem for some of these experts on here. But for me, the constantly changing direction was causing chipping, that as I fixed it, was messing up the design. I didn't have any appropriately sized basswood, but i started over on a piece of poplar, so hopefully that will go better. the cool thing about practicing is I don't feel like I blew a project, I can enjoy the process instead being so focused on the result.