No-Clamp Carving Platform For Thin Wood

[Robson Valley]

I needed a way to carve thin sheets of wood but no clamps and no need to hold the wood in one hand. Thin wood for feathers, fins, flower petals, etc.
Here's my solution to the puzzle. There's a 1" x 2" grid of 3/8" holes in pine and that platform is clamped to the bench. The pegs are splined 3/8" dowel assembly pegs which do not fit very tightly at all.

For example, I split out some panels of cedar and smoothed them with my planer knife just enough to transfer drawings. The boards are by no means flat. Makes no difference with the planer knife and the changing sweep of the blade. Drawings then a couple of 3/8" holes in the waste wood. I'll use a scroll saw to cut out the carvings later.

One peg is the anchor peg. That also allows the work to rotate 360 degrees so I can carve curves with the grain in any direction. One side in one direction, flip it around and the other side in the other direction with the other skew. No clamps to fool with. The stop pegs, only one is really needed, go in any convenient hole and you're working in that direction.

Pics 1 & 2: the general set up. Those NAREX skews (dark handles) are now 20 degrees. The little carvings are book-matched bits of western red cedar, some day they may be the flared tail-feather display of a Rufous Hummingbird.
Pic 3: My supervisor and critic of the cold shop, Heidi, showed up for a moment.

[Northwest29]

If the other side is flat why not use double sided tape and tape it to a larger surface that can be easily clamped down?

Ron

[Robson Valley]

I split my own boards from western red cedar log. Same way as splitting out shingles and shakes. This and other pieces are maybe 3/8" (max) x 4-6" x 22" The logs are usually free, store bought wood costs money. They always come out more or less wavy on both sides. The piece you see is maybe 3/8" thick in some places, 1/4" in others. The way it is secured, the surface shape doesn't seem to matter even though they are book-matched.

Hard to find enough surface area for taping, particularly when I'm running all the stop cuts on the lines. Taping meant that I couldn't spin the piece around without having to add more tape in a different place. I pull very hard on a Moor large chip knife to make the deep stop cuts.

Mind you, I have spent less than 8 hours working with this board. Everything was lying around in the shop, it took minutes to make.

[mobjack68]

I like the idea, seeing a lot of possibilities. Just curious...have you considered using wooden wedges to tighten your work against the pins???

[Robson Valley]

I have seen some carving platforms which use wedges. I wondered about that. Looks useful until I want to change the orientation of the carving 10-30 degrees with every cut (the feather stop cuts for example). Where did I put the hammer to bang the wedges tight? Then I have to force them apart.

This solution was borne out of the idea that I would work backwards. It is common to rough out a blank of a carving and then set to it with hand tools, Foredoms, etc. Instead, I decided that I would do as much of the carving (both sides) as I could before I cut it loose from the waste wood. The waste wood was to be my point(s) of fixture.

Pulling the knife towards me (the peg), the wood is jammed between my knife edge and the stop peg = nothing moves. There's no friction or force to make it difficult to reorient the work in a few seconds.

If it didn't work so well, at the very least I could have enjoyed roasting a marshmallow over its glowing remains.

[Robson Valley]

The mods deleted the insult (thank you) so I'll delete my acidic reply.
Have recently used the board again to carve turtle heads/necks.
4 holes in one end of the 2x2 WRC so I could flip the pieces around and over.
They are coming along just fine.
What did surprise me was the extra speed with which I got the work done.
Left, right, top, bottom, changed in seconds and very stable, every time.