Tagua Relief

[lunchboxfl]

I am looking at getting into tagua relief carving. I am finding it hard to find any books on this or anytype of books to work with tagua. If anyone has any info it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[xsailer]

Try the following and do a search within "Material".

The Carving Path (Powered by Invision Power Board)

[mateo]

I am not claiming to be an expert but I have some experience with tagua carved in relief and the round, I remember saying something here about keeping scrapers really sharp...Tagua nut carvings In the end, practice is all a person really needs.
Good luck and let us see the results of your labor.
I also agree that the carving path is a good place to look.
Matt

[lunchboxfl]

Thanks for the speedy replies. I will have a look. I will post once I start giving it a try. Thanks again.

[lunchboxfl]

Matt
What do you use to carve yours. I see the ones you did in the post and they are what I am looking at trying to do. Is there any quick tips you can give me. How do you paint them. Any quick tips to get me started would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Kenny_S]

Matt, For some odd reason, I miss your post on carving the tagua nut. Those are some fantastic pieces. The only thing I have done with them is cut slices and the little bride has =made neckless pieces from them. May have to look more in to this style of carving. Really like what you carved.

[mateo]

I carve with a scraper that was once a drill bit. Ground down opposite end and stuffed it into a home made Cherry handle.The blade on it is about 4 mm. thats the tool for material removal, then I use a couple of 1.5 mm two cherries micro chisels for the finer details. one skew and one straight. I wish I had an even smaller pick style tool but have not made one yet and seem to get by without. I can spend all day on the carving and thats okay with me, but I am very lazy about the sanding and like to use a dremel for that. Make your own sanding disks from varying grits of wetdry paper up to 2000, glued to heavy drawing paper. That really makes them smooth. diamond burs for hard to reach areas.
I do not really know of any short cuts, its just like carving wood only harder material with no grain. Tools must be very sharp. To summarize{ slicing good chipping bad.
Be prepared to fail a few times, just like with beginner wood carvers.
OBW, I do not paint mine, I prefer the natural ivory color. I have stained some with walnut stain, just to experiment. I know some folks uses dyes and even India ink. I know a guy that wears his carvings aroud his neck. Body oils change the colors over time. Theres a lot of sweating going on down here in Iquitos Peru.
Good luck.
Matt

[susieq]

Matt,
I am just curious...is the palm tree that these nuts come from, native to your area? Palm trees grow everywhere here in Florida. I just wondered if it was possible to get some seeds that hadn't been treated, some that might grow?
Of course, I have no idea just how old the tree would have to be before it produced the seeds.... LOL. It it has to be 10 to 20 years old...I better just keep buying mine through the suppliers.

[Ron T]

Matt, I made a nice, simple scraper using an Allen wrench, grinding it down using my Dremel, and then polishing on diamond hones.

Bob, you might want to try this for your netsuke tools.

[xsailer]

Yeah Ron I'm in the process of making and some scrapers now.