Carving from Blanks

[Big_Al]

I have been checking the caricature forum since June 13th and no avail. I guess we are all busy carving. I have been reading all the forums and am amazed at how many questions on blanks. Too many (beginner) carvers rely on a "Perfect cut blank" which is a bad habit to get into. Starting a caricature from a block of wood is a good way to learn how to carve. Sometimes I cut a blank crooked on purpose to show students the reason why we use a center line. I find that doing this teaches them a good lesson, that cutting a blank is nothing more than removing some wood to make it easier and faster to get to the finished product. Let's hear your thoughts. Big Al

[BasketballJones]

I agree Big Al. I realize blanks are used to save time. I view cutting the blanks as the first carving step. I'm not great at following the pattern once its is transferred either due to mistakes or not comprehending a specific detail. Being inexperienced, I gain a better sense of symmetry and understanding the pattern of what I'm carving by making the blank.

[mikeg]

I like Pete LeClair's book "Carving Caricature Figures From Scratch" because he does do it from a block of wood rather than making a blank. It's also one of the reasons that I like Jack Price's "Carving Small Characters".

I admit that it is faster to use a blank, but it's easier to haul around a block of wood in the tackle box I use for my tools.

mikeg

[Bartster]

i too have gotten where i had use a square block also unless it is something special, but carving from a block is alot more fun cause you never know what you gonna get kinda like a box of chocolates carving from a block you can just let the creativity flow

bart

[Anthony Filetti]

I've never used a rough-out (I have to for some upcoming classes though) and that taught me the basics of design and starting from a block. This helped since I wanted to get to the point that I could create my "original" carvings. Case in point, I wanted to create a dog for a particular carving so I looked for some basic pictures of the breed and since I had carved dogs before using Tom Wolfe's books I was knowledgable enough in the primary anatomy of the anmal that I could make a rough cutout using my bandsaw and just start from there. Works quite well and gives me a sense of accomplishment since it is an original carving....


...my two cents...

Glad to see that us Caricature Carvers are still around!!

[Mitchell]

As some of you may have noticed, I asked BobD to make this a new thread because I did not think that it should be buried in another topic.....thanks for the idea Big Al.

[gdr2004]

Thanks for the tip! :-)

[Goody]

As promised here are some more pis of the roughout machine. I needed to find a way to cut hours out of the santa carvings to be able to keep up with the demand and to keep my prices where I wanted them. I tried some local and other duplicator services and the prices for blanks was not where I wanted it to be. One of my patterns was never returned and I have seen a santa blank out there suspiciously close to my original pattern. Being in the industrial trades all my working life I decided to build my own. I researched the decoy machines and the furniture machines as well as some commercial machines and the price was too high for me. Some of the machine s would only do part of what I wanted to do so I sat down one night and drew the plans for what I thought would work on a cad system. I showed it to a friend of mine that owns a machine shop and he said lets build it. It took about six months as we only worked on it after our regular work day. All total it ran me abot $2000. to build. It will carve from 12" to 60" in length and I can turn a 10 x 10 on it. Right know it is a manual machine, but I have left provisions to automate it in the future. It works on the basic KeyCutter principle. I follow the original carving with a stylus and the cutters do the rest. When I have one plane cut a have a drive motor that turns all the carvings to the next plane. When I get all around its pretty much done. I run 4 carvings at a time and if I back to back them I can run 8. It takes about 15 minutes to set the blocks up in the machine and about another 15 to run the set of blanks. I settled on Rotozips as the cutter motors and have only burned up one so far. I have about another $1500 in dust collection eguipment. I HATE saw dust!!!
Goody

The above was A post I put in Tools & Sharpening (Decoycarves Shop). I carve all my orginals then run them in the roughout machine. Even though I can do some fine detail with the machine I leave my blanks pretty rough to allow freedom in changing each carving around a little. I enjoy both the challenge of the original and the satisfaction of finishing a carving in one sitting.

[Mitchell]

Blanks are good for beginners, because the proportions are already established. For caricatures, exact proportions are not so critical. I think it's important to be "close", but there are alot of more things necessary to make a good carving.

Primary is carving skill...being able to make clean cuts, etc.

Blanks also save time. For a beginner, this is beneficial as they can see their results quicker and less apt to get frustrated.

For the intermediate carver, I think it's more important to develop creativity. I'd encourage them to rely less on blanks and try more of their own patterns. Or use a blank for one pattern (or design) and change it. The same with rough-outs.

[Big_Al]

Thank you for your thoughts on this subject ( especially the short replys)
Maybe we caricature carvers can keep this comunication going so that it might help others in the future. I very seldon post, for fear that one of my ideas might offend some people. Big Al
P.S. Anyone going to the Pocono rounup?