Working with Oak

[Bruutmans]

Mornin`all

I have made or better,i`m making a small oak stool.
It probably is not going to be bigger then your foot.
I have size 43 (errrmm,that`s european,i`m sorry i do not know the right one in inches,or feet),well is is as big as a grown man`s foot.

It`s for the cat from my nephew. He made a hallway inside the wall,so the cat can get in and out of the house,whenever he wants,even when the boss ain`t at home. But the step-up is a little too high,when the floor is going in (cement) we will gain a little,but we have like a gap from one and a half stone. (veldbrand,it`s an old dutch building stone)
So De Harrie,that`s his name,will need a little stool!
I`m making him one and i already did the legs on the lathe (is that right? it seems a weird word to me,lol,but hey i`m Dutch,lol).
The blade on top is already ready to receive a patter.

Yesterday i have been drawing all kinds of patterns and trying to find one i like. But i`m so incredibly terrible at drawing,omg!! My children do it better lol!! Ah i do not care,really,i have pencils enough and i use them also when i carve. My wife does a lot of clai thingies and she told me to picture stuff in circles and draw it out. That works fine for me. I also do a lot of stuff "on the fly" ,i`ll see how it is going along the way. Sometimes it works,most of the time it don`t lol!!

Well i`m going to chop out a pattern,but does anyone have some last tips for me,because this oak is HARD! incredibly hard. I`m used to working with Linde. Hmm i`ll search for that one in google translate,one moment please.....
Yes and that is : The well known basswood.
I see i have to learn a whole lot of new words here. That`s not bad,i`ll catch on.
By the way,how is my english? And just tell it to me,i`m dutch,we can handle the truth like no other. How do you call that : we don`t front. Is that correct when is say front?
But back to the oak! Give me some tips regarding to the patterns please,maybe i miss something or whatever,maybe tips to make it easyer,any kind of tips are most welcome,because this is my first attempt at patterning oak!


Greets and blesses

[cut up]

Bruutmans,
your English is well enough to understand, for the most part. It is well enough for me to know you are looking for information on a pattern, but you didn't say what kind of pattern you would like. If you would be more specific, I know someone would be more than happy to help you out. Since it is for your cat, maybe carve a cat and it's name.
I have carved oak, and it is very hard and sometimes brittle. A lot depends on if it is white oak or red oak. Don't be in a hurry about carving it, make sure your knives are sharp. You may have to do some cross the grain carving to reduce the splintering.
I hope this helps.
Michael

[Bruutmans]

Hi Michael,

everything helps :-) (Y)
Good to know people at least understand what i mean,lol!
Here and there a grammatical mistake,just makes people smile i think.

About the patterns.
I`m trying myself to create one,but wanted to do something in scandinavian style maybe.
So i`m drawing and drawing.
After that comes "how do i get it on the oak". I thought i`s use carbon-paper. I really do not know how it`s called in English. Small shops who write you a receat use it too. The bleu paper you put between paper so you don`t have to write things twice,that kind of paper was my idea.

I have white oak. Is that harder then red oak? Softer?
And you say that i need to keep my knives sharp!
Here comes the next problem. I`m not that great on the stone (yet!) I have somekind of technique my dad tought me when i was a little boy. But hey it is difficult! And not learned over night. Sometimes i practice and practice. Already i have one knife so incredibly not sharp,it is so bad that you could use it to travel bare buttocks on it from Denver to Madrid,lol!
And after some time i got it a little bit sharp. Hey here is a beginning i thought to myself ,and tried to perfect it. It came out even a little sharper so i`m stickin` to this technique and will try to improve it.

Ow,and help me out here. What does "cross the grain carving" mean?

Now i have to run of to hospital quickly.
Bye for now.

Dries

[Claude]

White oak is a little bit harder than red oak, but is a little less likely to splinter.

Cross grain. Place a board in front of you so one end is by your left hand and the other end is by your right hand. Pushing the gouge from right to left, or left to right is carving "with the grain" or "against the grain", depending on whether the gouges tries to split the wood (against) or glides easily up and out (with). If you push the gouge straight away from you on the board, that is carving "across the grain"

Carbon paper is fine for transferring patterns. You could also glue the pattern to the wood with a removable adhesive (like post-it notes), and then just cut right through the paper. You could also just draw the pattern directly onto the wood.

For help with sharpening, go to Google.com, and put "scary sharp" in the search field. There are lots of web sites and even youtube videos. Essentially, you take a perfectly flat base such as a marble tile, or piece of glass. You use spray adhesive to stick several strips of sandpaper of various grit size to the flat object (for example, 400, 600, 1200, etc.). You start with the coarse grit, then move to the next one, and so on. Can be down using the wet-or-dry sandpaper with some water or oil, if you prefer. I do it dry. This is primarily used to get a tool sharp to begin with, or repair a chipped edge.

Once your tool is sharp, then you need to strop it. Strop means to drag the tool along a piece of leather or other firm object that has a very fine stropping compound on it (jeweler's rouge, diamond dust, chromium oxide, etc.). Once your tool is sharp, stropping will keep it sharp without having to go back to the sandpaper or stone. The key is that the strop must be thin and backed by a flat firm object. Mine is a piece of thin scrap sueded leather glued to a piece of MDF shelving. The reason it must be thin is that the leather compresses as the blade is pulled across it (always away from the cutting edge), and as the leather springs back up, it will round the edge of the blade slightly, and make it less sharp. Some other things people have used for strops: The inside of a breakfast cereal box, plain wood or MDF with the compound directly on the wood.

Claude

[Bruutmans]

Hi there Claude,

Thanks for your input
Okay,so the white oak is the hard one,but splinters less.
Are there any other collors of oak?

Cross grain,i should have known it!
Thank you for youre explanation,after reading it,the bell rang loud ,lol

I did a search on the "scarry sharp". What i do is this. I use a stone first,after that a strop,and then on the buffing machine. I usually do it this way.
Someone on youtube told the viewers that it should look like if you`re cutting a slice of stone. This really does not work for me at all. I turned it around,like how you are supposed to strop. After i did,i had a little sharp. So i think i have to continou on that one to perfect my technique.
I`m verry amazed that they us paper?! Why didn`t i think of that one!
If i`m correct. You can get the same with stones isn`t it? Only you need different kind of stones,that support different kinds of grit. (grid or grit? ,course is also correct isn`t it?)

Can you get a knife sharp on a 3euro`s worth wetstone? (and keep in mind that i do not yet have the technique) or would it be smart to buy one that is a little more expensive? And wich one should i take then? I`m geussing to start out with a triangle stone. Japanese wet? Arkansas? Belgium Bleu (cotticule)?
What about a second hand stone?
Ow and maybe this one,because i have this idea already for some time. I have an old pink stone in the garage. A big one. I was thinking to take it to a store where they cut stones and let them cut me slices from it.
It`s an old pink one,but i don`t know what brand or anyting,but my dad said it was a good one,better then the ones i have now. So that might be an idea.

About the stropping. I have a peace of wood and took black leather from a coat and glued it,turned the leather and took the inside of that peace and glued it. One rough and one soft side so to say, one side i use with the green chalk and the other side with white compound. And for my flexcuts i have another stropper ,exactly the same,only i use the gold compound there,and ofcourse the white to finnish. Buffing by the way is done with cleaner for your car,only this one is special, (big grin) well lets say i got it as a present from someone who works with really expensive cars and that this is the finest they can get.

That`s all for now i think.
A great thanks for helping,i apreciate it verry much.

Now it`s time for the couch so i`m al rested for tomorrow`s oak

Dries

[cut up]

Dries,
When you strop the blade you pull the blade opposite direction of a cut.
As for the stones, if I understand it right the Arkansas stone will cut the blade quicker for removing nicks. The next one to use would be the Japanese stone or the cotticule, as they will both finish the blade about the same. Then use the strop with the cutting edge dragging behind.
I'm not sure about the pink stone, but you want to make sure it is flat.
The car cleaner you are using sounds like it may be a polish compound that has about the finest grit that you can get.
White oak in the U.S.A. was used for wine barrels. Once they got it put together they would turn it bottom side up over a fire and char in inside.
Red oak, you could almost pour water through it because it is such coarse grain.
I wouldn't attempt carving white oak without a power carver.
Hope this helps.
Michael

[Bruutmans]

Hi there michael,

And a good morning there, don`t know if it is day or night overthere,here it is morning,qourter to nine to be exact.

Alright,stropping always "dragging".

The stones. If i`m correct that means also that you do not always use the stone,meaning that you strop more then u stone. Claude made a similar remark i think.
Yes yes,the pink stone must be as smooth as marmer,euhm what is the right word for that. Marble? no,that`s a toy. Euhm... let me think,ow google is my friend,lol.
One sec. Yes it was Marble,lol. But a marble is also a toy isn`t it?

I also use the finest "commandant" ,also a car cleaner wich is available in different kinds of grit. it is a little too watery,so i always leave it standing without the cap on,so it thickens a bit.

Seems i`m up for a challenge with that white oak.
Okay then. I get a little scared now when you say i wouldn`t even try it.
Well i have a real nice hand forged (is that correct forged? that`s what a blacksmith does)
set of gouges,chissels. So i can do something i think. Well i`m going to give it a try anyway. It is going to be a real challenge then,since i broke my spine twice. So it`s going to be verry time consuming i think. Ah well,let`s see what happens,and it is also a real good practice for my back. It needs tot toughen up a bit.

But powertools and a powercarver in particular. Never even heard of that. What am i supposed to imagine by that? A chissel on a drill or something? lol!
Well i made the promiss that it is going to be all handwork,so i need to keep my promiss in that.
That`s a good one i think. Is handwork,still handwork if you use a dremel for instance?
I know a lot of people use it for constructing the eyes (my granddad did),but then in my opinion it is not real handwork anymore. where do you guys stand in that one?

Bye for now

Dries

[Bruutmans]

Here a pic of the legs for the stool.

[cut up]

Dries,
Yes, marble is a child's toy, but it is also a type of stone cut in a quarry. It is used as kitchen counter tops.

I only use the stones if I nick or damage the blade.

I could not do any carving in white oak, because I have arthritis that has destroyed my joints. I have used a draw knife and lost sleep because of the pain, and I have used carving knives in hard wood with the same result. I have to work slow and make small chips to carve.

Michael

[Bruutmans]

Hi Micheal,

Wow i`m really learning a whole lot of words again. (words that i already knew,but it`s refreshing the memory).

Marble,yes the first thing that popped to my head was a child`s toy. After that came the counter tops,lol.
I want that pink stone to be like marble. At least top and bottom. Hmmm,maybe the sides too,but that depends on the cost. Since i`m not working and living of welfare,i don`t have much to spend.
Mostly i have a peace of month left at the end of my salary,lol!
I must say our system of welfare is pretty good,i don`t have much to complain. And after all,i payed for it too all the years i worked,so no shame in living on welfare for me. And i do a volunteers job,twice a week an afternoon. And that can be anything,like have a chat with elderly people,or take someone to the city and have coffee. play a game with someone. Or even help building birdhouses. there is so much to do in that.

And do you have the arthritis only in your hands or are other joints also infected? (is that correct when i say infected? or do you need to say something else?)
I can imagine how it is. But hey we have to go on or else we will fall in a gap,or go mentally insane. Naaah been there,and done that too.
Doctors told me to take it realy easy now. They compared it with an old tire. You still have some grip left and the choice is totally yours,so you can go race again,with al the conseqeunces,slipping and sliding or maybe a blow out,or you drive slowly and try to do as long as possible with that tire!
Besides the two fractures i also have pseude-arthroses. Yes it gets nicer and nicer.
To top that of i have one fracture between mij shoulders so to say and the other one is really low in the back. So if i have lower back problems my legs wil fail or hurt. And when i have the upper part,then all muscles in that area contract in some kind of way that makes it impossible to do anything at all,or you still do it ,and get it back double ,some time later on.
Ow well,i have to learn how to live with that. Difficult struggle that`s for sure. But i`m still amongst the living and that`s far more valuable for me then anything else,beside my kids ofcourse.
So i seem to be a lucky bastard! (i`m too young (38), to be in this situation,but it aint another way so...)

I work slowly too,that`s just the best way. I walk slowly,sleep slowly,lol,just do everything slowly and then it`s do-able for me. Today i did the patern, and after that i walked the dog,and now it`s all done. Nothing left so to say. So tommorow is another day and i might feel a little better and do a little more,i keep looking at it day by day.
I have one disadvantage,when i`m whittling i forget everything around me,also the time! So that means that i can "wake up" after an hour and then i`m pretty much ******,because i sat down to long in one stance (is that correct,stance? i think you know what i mean) But i already tackled that one, i have to stand after like 20 minutes and walk around a little,but i tackled it with the cooking alarm,lol! Hey it works fine for me,but the wife didn`t laugh that much when i stole her kitchen alarm whahahahaha!!

Okay now i`m going to look for the couch and lay down a bit. I over did it today so i need some rest or else my evening is already done for ,before it even starts!

Slow carving ;-)

Dries