New With Troubles

[flyboy36]

Hi all! I'm new to carving, and new to this site!
Last July, my wife decided to open her own floral and gift shop in our small town. Quickly realizing that one can not survive on flower sales alone, we began searching ideas for other venues of cash flow. I had the bright idea to start carving gun stocks, then turned into cutting wedding glasses, theeen into plaques. I thought that could be an aweful lot of equipment to do all that. I searched on-line and found a pnuematic engraver from SCM in WI. I can relief carve wood, cut names or designs in glass with it, and engrave metal as well. Done several gun stocks for examples at the store, and getting lots of A+ comments on my work. Have yet to do one for a customer. Did several orders for wedding glasses, and gotten the same comments. The other day, the wife and I did floral arrangements for a funeral of a friend of hers. I was asked at 4:30 p.m. if I could carve an eagle in wood the the visitation the next day, and I had to be up for work at 3:45 a.m.!!! Out came the chainsaw, raided the neighbors oak wood pile for his fire pit, and started cutting. I cut off several 2 inch thick pieces of red oak from a wide tree branch, sanded the face smooth with a belt sander, transfered the image I wanted onto the wood with carbon paper, and started relief carving. When I finished two hours later, I had all the detailing in it that I wanted, but realized that it was hard to see the eagle head because the color of the wood was so uniform. I stained with "natural" stain, thinking that the deep cuts and scuffs would darken up revealing the details. It did NOT. Brought out the grain nicely, and the wood looked great, only, I just could barely make out the work I had done. I was in a hurry with this last second order, and was left very dissappointed. I tried a second one, this time with a buck and doe heads overlapping looking the same direction, oak trees in the back and a huge rack of horns on the buck. Looked pretty dern good, but I have the same problem with the stain. VERY hard to see the details unless you get right up to it. If you hung it on a wall, you probably wouldn't even know what it was until you were close. I wanted to put the deceased's name on it as a memorial for the guys hunting cabin, but, I'm dissappointed in that too. Anyone have any pointers? Need help bad. By the way, I am carving into END GRAIN pieces. Thanks all!!!

[Rustic Rick]

a picture would be nice to see what's going on.

[Donsexton]

From you question I can’t tell if you are hand carving or using some type of CNC machine. Try this to get the contrast you want paint a very thin coat of thinned varnish on the parts you want to stay lighter. When the varnish is dry, stain the wood and then only the lower part will be darker.

[mpounders]

You might try it on something besides end grain, but I think the oak grain would still compete too much with really small details; works better with larger stylized carvings.

[sashadoc]

Here's a link to one of my canes. I stained it fairly dark and before it dried wiped the surface with a clean, lint free, rag. I would experiment with the wood you intend to use first. Hope this helps?
Tim
First wood spirit

[sXe]

photo of what You done would be very helpfull.
Next time try use water stain instead of the alcochol stain. alcochole stain is muche more aggressive. with water stain You can give more layers till You happy with the resoult.
Hope ti hepl.

[flyboy36]

HI again all. Been a while since I logged in. I'll try and get a picture up soon. I'm hand carving using a rotary tool like a Dremel, only the one I'm using runs off an air compressor, and about 400,000 RPM, (manufacturer claim). One comment was try cross-grain carving. True, but what I wanted was a piece that had the bark around the outter edges. I liked the idea of varnishing the "light" areas first, then dark stain the rest. Makes sense. What I still don't get though is how I'm going to get the "detail" lines in the light areas to darken up. There are so many detail line cuts, it would be too time consuming to brush a bit of stain in each line, and to do it without any bleedover. Tried rubbing right away with clean cloth, but stain soaks in way too fast. Using oil base. Matter of fact, if any of you have Facebook, I have the pictures on there. Look for Petal Pusher Floral. Hope you will be able to find them. The deer carving is the bugger I'm speaking of. You all gave me some great tips so far though. THANK YOU!

[sashadoc]

I've just now thought of a way to incorporate your carvings with her floral arrangements. How about a garden gnome in the flowers? The flowers will wilt and die eventually but the gnome lives on reminding the recipient of the special day. Just make sure he's waterproof!!!!
Tim

[Hannibal]

That's a really great idea sashadoc. I've also given flowers that came with a wooden butteryfly on the top of a skewer..the possiblitys are endless. And with your powertool you could get some great detail I bet

[Steve Reed]

Mix a 50/50 mix of Watco Clear and Watco Dark. Brush it on, then rub it off. Should leave the dark wax only int the deep cuts. You could also try Briwax.