Relief carving background

[bruce185]

I would like to produce a perfectly flat background, such as in the area here that the pencil points to. It seems that some sort of micro bent skew is required, but even that would not reach into the point of the leg joint. I have tried holding straight chisels with the bevel down, but that produces a lot of tearing. Is there any special tool or technique for this area, and generally smoothing out the background in relief carving?

[pallin]

Many relief carvers use a "dogleg" or bent gouges. In areas where you are forced to cut cross-grain (as the point of the leg joint), your tool must be super sharp.

[davidinsarasota]

I agree with pallin about a dogleg or bent relatively flat profiled gouge, but not too flat or the corners dig.

Also cross grain is my preferred method.

[LBlake]

I've had very good results making a flat, clean relief background in similarly small (or much smaller) areas using some of the dockyard 1.5mm micro tools. I think the ones I used the most were the skew and the v-tool. I was carving in aspen.
If you can find dogleg tools, I agree - they would be ideal. and, Pallin is right - to do it cleanly, I had to keep the tools at their sharpest.
Good luck!

[carver33]

Another method is to use a scraper. Once you have it close, use a small scraper, going with the grain, to get the area flat and smooth.

[AlArchie]

Bill's idea of using the scraper is good...it works well. Something I've done is to take a #11 X-Acto blade and bend it into a tight curve about 1/4" back from the tip, leaving that last 1/4" flat. I heated it up red hot to bend it, then did a re-temper on it....cleaned up the steel then heated to a straw color and quenched it immediately in cold water. I realize this is not a technical way to do it but it works well enough to let the new shaped blade hold a pretty durn good edge.

That bend lets me get into some tight quarters where even a dog leg chisel is a bit bulky. And I didn't have to screw up a good chisle by bending it...those X_A blades are cheap and easy to get.

Al

[mobjack68]

ROUTER...I tried hard for years to be a purist. There just comes a time....
Use the router for the major stock removal. I set the depth just to get close, you will have the "router roundies" to clean up, and then use the dig tools to do the final cleanup where the router wouldn't go. If the router is not to your liking....there is always the "witch's tooth"......