Scaling Up In Size

[Robson Valley]

A while back, I did a 9" carving of a very stylized Raven, mostly beak and head. I always planned to scale it up. I have 2x 30" tall bodies roughed out, those are OK.
Now for the beaks. Do I need some divider-thingie-tool to get the proportions right?

How would you scale up a 4" Santa into a 48" Santa and keep the dimensions in proportion (even the shaping cuts)?

[AlArchie]

If you have access to a pantograph, that's probably the simplest way to go about it.

You can also go with a grid made up to the size you want.You'll need to grid off your original first.

Al

[Bob K.]

I agree with AlArchie...I think those are you best bets.

[Robson Valley]

I have a 2-D pantograph, that's all. Think it was Lee Valley, made of skinny wood & not stable. So I cloned it with 1" aluminum strip and transferred the hardware.

I've tried once: made a top drawing and a side drawing, laid those on wood and cut it with my little band saw. The shape looks like Hello.

[Robson Valley]

Globspot: How this way of enlarging your work by yourself could save you time, money and headaches!

This is a link out of an old thread in Sculpture.net about scaling up work from a maquette/model.
Think that I will ponder this as a method, also.

[davidinsarasota]

Bigger is easier in some ways: less fiddly little details for one thing. I know you are no Chris Pye fan, but I'm going to throw you a link to his Woodcarving Workshops site anyway. He has a 16 part tutorial on carving a Merlin (British bird presumably) that would be very useful to you.

It's a pay site, but it is reasonable ($8.95 per mo) and as eager as you are for carving info, I think you could hold your nose long enough to benefit from it. Woodcarving Workshops

[Robson Valley]

Thanks David:
I really got started in relief carving in a workshop and with books from Bill Judd and Chris Pye. But, it wasn't long before I decided that I wanted to carve "the other side, too." I won't hold my nose, CP is an enormous talent. Most of the time, I feel like such a beginner that sophisticated lessons would be lost on me. Everybody here can show me a trick or three.

I finished roughing out the feathers on both Ravens today (50 each?), stop cuts, inletting and relief. The knots were exploding, hunks were cracking off, I put one bird on the floor and promptly broke off the foot as a 4" x 3" x 3" chunk. Now I realize that the next best log for "beakwood" is at the bottom of the 4' pile.
Time to feed the cat, have a slurp and contemplate some supper. Bison somethingorother.

[indywood]

simpilest way would be a art projector...good luck

[Magicman]

I second the Art Projector, Airbrush artist use them all the time for enlarging photos on T-shirts and other things. All you do is move the projector back to enlarge.
Larry

[telecarver]

Get a proportion scale. It's simple to use and inexpensive. It's kind of like a round slide rule. It's one of my most valuable tools. You measure the size of your smaller body and then line up that size with the measurement of the larger body on the scale. Then measure the size of the beak on the smaller carving and find that size on the scale. It will tell you the exact size of the beak in the larger scale. It will also give you percentages that you can enter into a copy machine to give you the exact blow up or decrease in a pattern size. It's invaluable for laying out and blocking out sculptures from a clay model