Carving fur

#1 03-28-2005, 08:57 AM

Hi!
I am new to the board and wondered if this might be a good place to get some information on the art of carving fur. I live in Florida and recently took up carving after hurricane Ivan...lots of pine fallen. I rough cut with a chainsaw and finish with all the tools that I have read about here. Since I am new, I have been experimenting with life sized herons, cranes and other shore birds and recently a sea turtle. Now I want to venture into carving a life sized cat for my neighbor ( he has 18 cats!) and is a phonatical cat lover. I have been studying other carvings and even my own cat but It's not clicking in my brain as to go about the actual carving process. Any help?
Thanks,
Mike 410

artolver · #2 03-28-2005, 11:02 AM

mike410
If you like the chain saw, you could use it to do more than rough cut. With the modern chainsaws and carving bars and all kinds of stuff available they can get down to a finished piece... to get to the real fine stuff they use hand held power tools. Grinders, foredoms and micro buzzers if you want.
Or the traditional way, it is mallets and mallet tools for big pieces of wood, palm tools for small. For fur, v-tools and veiners are used a lot.
I carve cottonwood bark mostly and I use palm tools and mallet tools.
art

BobD · #3 03-28-2005, 11:22 AM

Mike,

Not that it will help right now, but the next issue of WCI is dedicated to pyrography and Desiree Hajany has done an article on burning in realistic fur textures with a woodburner. And we've got an article by Australian pyrographyer Sue Walters on adding realistic fur texture for a variety of different furs (from short, smooth hair like a horse, to leathery elephant skin and other types of hair).

But to be honest, Burning might be your easiest way to add fur texture! Small V tools might also work, but it might take longer!

Bob Duncan
Wood Carving Illustrated

artolver · #4 03-28-2005, 01:39 PM

Bob
to be honest v tools work very well
art

BobD · #5 03-28-2005, 02:09 PM

Sorry,I didn't mean to discount V tools--for me, I can't get them sharp enough to do any really detailed fur...and I know that is totally my fault! I've used a detail knife to add some fur details too...I guess it depends on the scale you are using and how intricate the piece you are working on is...Desiree's mouse is carved out of a goose-sized basswood egg.

Thanks Art for setting me straight! I shouldn't make sweeping comments like that without adding the background for my comments!

Bob

#6 03-29-2005, 08:01 AM

Thanks for all your help. I think I will do some practicing with both the V-tool and the burner and see which works best for me. I think the challenge for me is going to be the clumping or layered effect that the fur takes on. It looks like you have to carve in the raises and depressions and thern use the V-tool or woodburner.

Appreciate the advice.
Mike

Just Carving · #7 03-29-2005, 08:16 AM

Just curious...I know it would be a lot more tedious, and take longer, but would using a jeweler's triangular file to score the "hairs" yield a better result than a v-tool? I have been getting good results on pine when using that method to clean the letters on signs that I have been carving with knives.

Bob

#8 03-29-2005, 08:50 AM

Bob,
I'm not sure about the jewelers file because I have never seen one. I have a regular triangle file but I am using very sappy slash pine from logs that were "downed" from hurricane Ivan. This sap tends to load up on tools and I think the file would be rendered useless. Thanks for the tip though. I might look for one of those files for some walnut carvings that I have in mind.
Mike

dryheat · #9 03-29-2005, 09:59 AM

Mike410-

I don't know if it would work in wood, but in metal, rubbing regular chalk into the teeth of a clean file will help keep it from loading up. Might be worth a try.

artolver · #10 03-29-2005, 11:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mike410

Thanks for all your help. I think I will do some practicing with both the V-tool and the burner and see which works best for me. I think the challenge for me is going to be the clumping or layered effect that the fur takes on. It looks like you have to carve in the raises and depressions and then use the V-tool or woodburner.

Appreciate the advice.
Mike

absolutely, the fur, hair and feathers must be carved as matter. That is your detail, those raises and depressions. The depressions are your lines. you can create them with a gouge, V-tool, rasps, the tip of your chainsaw etc.. The tools for textures are the same with much more options including tiny burs for a foredom type tool and the woodburner.
art