[jstive]

Hello all, it's me again (Jim) mr. pain in the butt. I have a simple question for a novice woodcarver. How do you keep you stop cuts or any other cut for that matter clean? Say Iam carving a whimsey house and I have a weird shape window to cut in. (By the way this is on Basswood.) I've made my initial stop cut and start cutting the shape of the window out. First stop cut everything is fine but, when you go to deepen the stop cut sometimes I will miss the first cut by maybe a fraction and then when I carve to the stop cut it starts leaving stringy pieces of wood at the cut. If I keep deepening my stop cut it seems to get worse to the point of having allot of stringy slivers and a rough looking cut. When I try to clean it up I have to widen the area that Iam working on and sometimes it messes up the project. Could someone give me some tips on keeping a clean cut? Is it a matter of keeping your knife cutting exactly where you made the initial cut? Maybe Iam in to big of a hurry as Iam learning more and more on carving Iam learning to slow down and take ones time. I might be crazy but I can sit down in my carving room and enjoy turning a long square piece of basswood to a long round piece of basswood. There is just something about a good sharp knife slicing through the wood like butter that has just got me hooked. Now if I can only do some nice carvings like I see so many others doing I will be thrilled. I do know onething is for sure I will never give up on it, it's just to enjoyable. Any help out there I would be thankful. Jim </IMG>

[Eddy Smiles]

Jim.... Practice....Practice...Practice! And then you won't always nail it! I had one of our club carvers correct me this past spring. He observed my carving and told me that I didn't have control of the knife and that I was using too much of the blade. Also I was laying the blade down when I should have been keeping it more perpendicular to my work. If all this is confusing don't feel alone. Just keep carving and trying different techniques like taking smaller chips and cutting shallower.

[squbrigg]

Patience and practice. Your tools need to be sharp, and if in doubt, send them to Rick (Rick In Seattle/ Little Shavers) for sharpening. That will give you a standard to measure sharp from. Then just take your time and place your tool correctly in the stop cut. Depending on the wood, you sometimes need some extra force, like a tap with the heel of your hand, or a mallet, or often just a side ways rocking motion will work. But usually, and especially with Basswood, just steady even pressure will do the trick.

Perhaps you could hook up with an experienced carver or club to get some pointers from? Experience will be your best teacher, but an instructor will cut your learning curve down somewhat.

Bob

[Mitchell]

Don't make your first cuts in a place you want your final one.....

take out as much wood as you can without getting into the spot that you want your final detail, and then when everything looks right, make your final detail cuts one time.

[Lynn O. Doughty]

Here is the secret to clean cuts:

When you're cutting a roast at the dinner table and you press the knife blade straight down across the grain of the meat you will notice that the surface of the meat on each side of the blade dips inward toward the edge of the blade until it cuts and then springs back.......

When you're getting ready to mow the yard, do you ever wonder why the sharp edge of the mower blade is slanted to cut at an angle instead of sharpened on both sides to cut straight into the grass?

When you're shaving with a bladed razor do you ever wonder why the edge of the blade is bent downward at an angle?

The secret of clean cuts is to NEVER cut straight into the grain of the wood. ALWAYS slice at an angle, no matter how small or large that angle might be. That way you don't crush the wood grain by pressing it's fibers. Sure, there are instances where you have to go in straight but as a general rule do it at an angle if possible.

In a perfect world the first cut will meet the second cut at exactly the same spot at the bottom of the two cuts and the chip will fall out of a perfect cut. Unfortunately, it's not a perfect world. Like Eddie says practice is the key. However, using an angle cut will definitely improve your chances of the perfect cut as one of the angle cuts will overlap the other and the chip will be released cleanly.

Just remember, each time you go back to get that chip out you're going to leave a new mark at the bottom of the cut which gives you that fuzzy crap at the bottom that looks really bad.

[AlArchie]

This might seem a bit extreme, and it's not meant to skirt the "practice, practice, practice" regime. Try using a skewed chisle to make your stop cuts; one that is only beveled on one side. Hold the flat side against your old stop cut and the point will ride right directly below the first cut. If you don't have, or can't find one of those single bevel skews, check with a good wood craft store and ask for a "Marking Knife" or a "Striking Knife". They come in both right hand and left hand bevels.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...49&cat=1,42936

I use a single bevel skewed chisle, but either one of those marking blades would work just as well....maybe better!

And those little extra messy cuts after you clear the chip? There's a technique called "healing" or "burnishing" that can pretty well eliminate that.
If you have one of the X-Acto handles and an old flat X-Acto chisle, take the blade, grind off the sharp edge, and round the old cutting edge over. Then either strop or polish it so it's glass smooth. Now you can take that smooth rolled edge and push it very hard along the raised part or the deeper stop cut. This forces the wood fibers back into allignment, and will pretty well "heal" all this little defects. You will have to use quite a bit of pressure.

You can also do that by dragging a regular blade backwards across the damaged area, but I like to have a couple "burnishers" handy and ready for this type of work.


Al

[doris]

you dont need make the first stop cuts exactely where the windows should go. instead, first make the windows a tad bit smaller, just cut outside the pencil line. then, you have room for clean up any mess which occured unintentionally afterwards. and your carving can look neat with this little extra step. the more you learn the smaller you can make the extra space for safety. but this way your carving can look nice, even if you cannot get every cut clean---

[Tom H]

Well Jim, all the information that has been posted is good. Especially the practice, practice, practice. I have been carving for a little over two years now and by listening to those who has answered your question; my carving is vastly improved. However, I am not through listening and learning. And I still must practice, practice, practice. Even after all is said and done, some times the bottoms of my cuts are a little messy. Sometimes a lot messy! And some times you may be able to clean them up a bit more by scrubbing them with a stiff denture brush and soap and water. I use the MEAN GREEN cleaner that my wife has under the sink. I do this just prior to painting.

Tom H