Chip Carving Question

[Gulf Coast Handyman]

I was looking at the attached article and got really confused. As far as chip carving the coasters, how do you know when to make a stab cut and when to make a angled cut. When I looked at the picture of the coasters in the magazine some of the cuts look as if they were made by cutting straight down and not at a angle.


Quilt Patterns Inspire Chip-carved Coasters - Woodcarving Illustrated - Issue 44 Fall 2008

Dave

[CarverRog]

Dave, if you look at the upper right picture in the article that is a stab cut for a four corner chip which is on the dotted lines that are the valley ridges down to the center. Barry is doing this to help you get a nice clean line down to the bottom. The second photo is showing the angled cuts into the valleys. I hope that helps?

[Gulf Coast Handyman]

Thanks carverrog, I will give that a try.

Dave

[Jodyb]

I'm working on this coaster set. I just started with the first drawn pattern on the left side. I think the directions for the stab cut is for the design on the middle upper row.

[Gulf Coast Handyman]

Hi Jody, this is my first attempt at chip carving, so I apologize for my confusion. In the attached picture, the top left corner chip, in the three cuts needed to remove that chip, are they all cuts made at an angle, or is the bottom cut made on an angle and the two outside corner cuts straight down. It is hard to tell from the picture what the end result should be. Sorry for all the confusion. Thank you all for your help.
Dave

[RUssL.]

GCH,

All three cuts are at an angle.
Go to mychipcarving.com and look at the instructional video on carving the basic three corner chip.
Apply that to your upper left hand corner chip.

There are other short instructional videos on the web that show how to execute this basic building block of chip carving.

mychipcarving.com is just the first one that comes to mind.

RussL.

[Gulf Coast Handyman]

Hi Russ, I did look at that webite and I see what you are saying. But if you look at the picture of the coaster in the actual magazine, it looks as if the outside corners are cut straight down and not at an angle, maybe I am just getting thrown off by the picture. If you get a chance to look at the magazine, it's # 44 page 69, center of page, right hand coaster. I appreciate you help !

Dave

[RUssL.]

I'll look at the magazine article when I get home tonight.

RL

[Jodyb]

I'm doing this with all as three corner chips and not as his illustrated stab cuts. The larger triangles are really too large to cut as three corner chips so what I'm doing is cutting a smaller three corner chip in the center of the triangle (eyeballing) and then continuing to cut to the line using the 65 degree cut. My hands just aren't strong enough to do this all in one pass through so I'm doing it in steps.
When I look at the pattern, I think the triangles with the dots are the 3 corner chips and the irragular shapes that have the dotted lines are the ones that can be stab cut.

Hope that helps.

[RUssL.]

With regard to " # 44 page 69, center of page, right hand coaster" the corner cuts do appear vertical.

I'd cut 'em all like typical three-angle-cut chips if it were me.

I don't think I's get too hung up about it.

Get a piece of scrap wood, draw an example out and see which you like better. It's only wood, right?

RussL.