In Over My Head

[Harry C]

Hi Fellow chippers! I've started a relief after a design from Wm Judt's, Inspirational Woodcarving and found rather quickly that I'm in over my head. Doing his style of incised/raised lettering with letters about 1 1/2" high and having difficulty getting a nice clean background with the raised letters. I'm wondering if a Micro carver, like a RAM or something like that, would be helpful? Never used a micro carver and don't know anybody who has one, so I'd welcome your experience/advise. Harry C

[squbrigg]

Raised letters should be easy enough. What are you using for tools and what kind of wood.

With raised letters, you remove the area (background) surrounding the letters and smooth the new level. Once that is done you shape the letters to the style you want and tidy up your edges. Great tools to help smooth the background are bent gouges (# 3, #5) and it will depend on the letter size and style as to what would work for them.

Power carving is one option, for roughing out the piece, but I find that edges tools give a much better finished look.

Good luck, a picture might help us help you.

Bob

[Donna_T]

I agree with Bob, Harry.
I'd use hand tools to get a crisp edge on letters, although power could be used to work on the background. It's difficult to use power to get a uniform edge on something like lettering, but it's also a challenge to use power to get a uniform depth on background. I have used power to do clean up on a relief carving by using a small diamond flame tip to get down in nooks and crannies, and some Scotchbrite abrasive wheels to clean up the rest.
Donna T

[Dan S]

I have a couple of suggestions.
1. Make sure you have quality wood. It may not be you if you are carving the wrong kind or poor quality wood.
2. Be sure that your tools are razor sharp. Dull tools always leave a ragged cut.
3. Practice some cuts on some scrap until you get the hang of what he is doing. It's cheaper.
4. check the direction of the grain in your wood. If you are cutting endgrain constantly it's more difficult.

Good luck,
Dan

[Harry C]

Thanks guys. I'm going to try to attach a couple of pics. You'll see my rough bkgrd between the letters. The wood is Canadian Basswood. Woops! Sunk again! Haven't figured out h2 get pictures i nto the text.

[whittlinwill]

Harry,

To get photos on here, you need to resize them to "Thumbnails". When you click on the button on the left above, as if to post a reply, a blue text box appears as you know. at the top of it is a paperclip {next to the smile face}. if you click on this, you will get a box telling you the max size accepted depending on the type of file it is {gif, jpeg, etc.} . Once you have it properly sized, store it in a file on your computer. It usualy wants to access the document or picture file, so I usually store it in both, just to save having to back track if it wants the OTHER file. Then you can load it from your computer where it says "browse" {above the "max file size info".} Hope this helps. Happy Whittlin'! Whittlin' Will

[Harry C]

Here are two pictures.

[Shimmy]

In the Beginners Guide I wrote what people should do .Which takes a second and you will have no problems sending pictures anywhere.I do that to all the pictures I put into my computer from my camera ./So they I ready to go .It cahanges the size and also saves the original.Which I just delete.

[Dan S]

Heck, I'd be in over my head too!

Dan

[Harry C]

It certainly is a challege. But I enjoy that part of it also. Nice thing is that I'm not on a schedule, so if it takes me a few months (on and off working on it) that's OK. Most of the carvers I know around here (SE Michigan) are into characatures rather than relief work.