Celtic Knots

Alrighty, I finally taught myself how to draw a simple celtic knot. Now, how on earth do I carve the darned thing!? I tried using a dremel tool and it works real well for cutting out the gaps and removingthe background, but it mauls the overlaps in the knot. Does anyone have a sucessful method?

I use shallow stop cuts along with shallow waste cuts. I hope this makes sense. I can demostrate better than I can discribe.
Would you happen to be in the Wisconsin area?

Dale

'Put down the power tool and slowly step away from the wood' LOL

Seriously, have you tried hand carving the knot? I think that a chip carving type approach might be best for this type of design.

[mdallensr]

Shirley Adler shows some techniques in her love spoon book. I agree with the hand carving approach. A lot of stop cuts and a reverse-bent gouge would be a great start. Wasn't the Cap'n or some other poster working on Celtic knots some time back?

[Captain_Bandaid]

I start by using a pencil to draw lines at the intersections to show which rope goes over and which goes under. Using a flat chisel, I make deep stop cuts where the pencil lines are. I use a small carving knife to waste the wood down to about 1/3-1/2 the thickness. I then use an inverted gouge of the proper sweep to round the rope, however, a knife can be used for this too. A thin, pointed razor knife can be used to clean up the fuzzies at the intersections. A fine needle file works pretty good too. It just takes patience and thought. Make sure if you carve the backside, the intersections are opposite those on the front side.

I forgot to mention to you yesterday that there is a easy way to draw your not work. Go to www.clanbadge.com to take a look. It is a font you install on your computer and your keyboard is a section of a knot. I got this for myself because I do alot of mantel carving. At this time I am carving two Walnut mantels that have knots wraping around the front and sides. This totals over twelve feet of knots. On the next mantel I will take step by step photos of my technique and send them to those interested. On tip I have is when working on a series of knots make all the same cuts at one time vs one knot at a time. It does speed things up and gives a more uniform look. Example, if I am carving an intersection of a knot that is repeated a number of times I will carve all those intersections before going to another. This way you develop a feel for this area and reproduce it more acurate.

Dale

Â* Â*Wisconsin!? Â*I'm American by birth, Southern by the grace of God! LOL.

Â* Don't worry though, I'm not a power carver, just practical . I'll try hand carving, but a reverse bent gouge is out of the question, I'm a newbie whose carving tool amount to a dozen. I've still got a lot to learn it seems. By the way, this knotwork is going on a sheath for my carving knife so there will be no punctures.

Case in point.

The knot measures 1/2' by 2'. I think I'll be making some special tooling for this fella.

[Captain_Bandaid]

Mr. Munchkin, let me share a dirty little secret about relief carving, especially celtic knots. The router attachment for the Dremmel tool is FANTASTIC for wasting the background. You can bore into those small squares, waste them flat to the desired depth, then square them up. Don't tell anyone else, though, ok? :-X

I won't tell a soul. I'll leave that to you!