[Irish]

Step 181: BobD's question also made me realize that I have not talked about sharpening or honing your tools ... and I am not going into a lot of detail here.

There are several excellent carvers on this message board that have some really good ideas and techniques on sharpening. Maybe one of them will do an indepth tutorial on their techniques.

In these photos there are two knifes. The top one is a very old bench knife that is not good steel and has never held an edge. It's a nightmare of a tool and I don't know why I have kept it all these years except that it is a good example of a poorly sharpened tool.

Notice all those shiney spots along the edge of that bench knife. Everyone of them is a ding or a dull spot on the cutting edge. Because that area of the edge is not absolutely sharp the dull or flattened area can reflect light. This is a fast check for any tool that is causing you problems. Put the tool under a light and look! If you can see the edge or see highlights that tool is dull.

Now compare that to the chip knife just below the bench knife. No spots, no highlights. In fact it is so sharp you can not see the actual edge of the knife. That's the way you tools should look.

Now there are three things you can do with that top bench knife ... throw it away because there really are some tools that are just dull dogs or use it to learn
sharpening techniques because it's such a stinker of a tool it doesn't matter if you
mess it up while you are learning or ... send it to Rick-in-Seatlle and let him sharpen it for you

Step 182: I do check the edges of my tools often during any one session and probably hone a tool about every 20 minutes to one half hour of work. The honing keeps the edge sharp and it's a quiet chance for me to think about where I am headed next.

This is a synthetic strop with aluminum oxide powder. I also use a leather strop an red oxide rouge. The tool is laid very low on the strap to keep a tight angled edge to the tool. Honing is a back and forth, pull-flip-pull motion that brings a tools edge back to the sharp polish. Do it just like the barbers did in the old Western movies when they were stroping the razor on the long leather belt.

Step 183: My Dad taught me long ago to finish any and all sharpening sessions with a
newspaper honing. The fine texture of the paper gives your knife that extra polish and the ink acts as your honing compound.

(OK, Susan ... back to carving.)

[Tidewalker]

I also have a smaller one , I just sometimes like the larger one so I can bring everything in the house, tools included right on the bench hook. Also it is Tidewalker lol not tidewater.... It was a name I chose because I was a commercial scuba diver for 16 years. lol but Susan you can call me what ever you like

[Irish]

OOOPS! Sorry ... I'll stick to Darren and I will remember to call you for dinner!



Susan

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

I have tried newspaper, paper and cardboard, the dense tight grained cardboard, it all works good for a strop, and if you want it to really work good, rub a little of the cheap white rubbing compound on the paper first!

[Irish]

Step 184: I am headed into the stem and tendril areas of the carving. Because this area has so many ups and downs, grain direction changes, I have marked where I think the direction of the cuts need to go. This map may not be accurate, as I work I will discover - feel out - how that knives need to run. But it gives me a starting point for the smoothing steps.

Step 185: I have had to move the project away from the corner of my bracing board. So I am using the side of my right hand to brace the wood with a downward pressure. I have my chip knive, you can use the bench knife also, and am rounding over the edges. I am
not too concerned at this time about the outer side walls. I will catch those when I finish the back side of the project.

Step 186: Where there are intersections or joints in the stem area I am using my chip knife to make a small chip cut. This cleans out those corner areas.

Step 187: I have picked up my bull nose chisel to round the center areas of the stem. You can also use a straight chisel or your wide sweep.

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[Irish]

Step 188: New tool! One of my most indespensible tools for relief carving is the
u-gouge, also called a veining gouge. This is the smallest profiled tool in my kit.

It's a very tiny round gouge that is perfect to teasing out wood in very tight deep angles. Here I am cleaning out the space trapped by the twist of the stems.

Here are three tools. The left one is my large round gouge, the middle is the
v-gouge I have been using and the right one is my veining gouge or u-gouge.

Step 189: I have moved into the intersecton where the stem goes under the leave and am using that veining tool to trim up, dress out the joint line.

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[Irish]

Step 190: Since I have lots of room in my stems, they are nicely thick, I am going to add an under cut in the curl area. This will make that part of the stem stand out because of the dark under cut shadow. This is the first cut of the two.

To make the second cut I needed to turn the project up side down. You can see how deeply that point is imbedded into the under cut area.

And here I am teasing out the wedge of wood created by that under cutting. I am using the dog leg chisel but as I said before you can use any tool that will tuck under this cut to pull out that slice including the straight chisel, small straight chisel, your rifflers or sand paper roll.

OK ... that worked! I like it! So Step 191 is to under cut the other side

Step 192: Here is another place where that tiny veining tool comes in handy. After the second under cut and teasing with the chisel there was still some wood left under the cut in the tight corner. The veining tool is perfect for those impossible to get to places.

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[Irish]

Step 193: This is a quick check of where we are. Now notice where the stem curls under itself ... the chip knife point is next to this area. What I am going to do next is round over and tuck the lower part of the stem under the upper part using my large round gouge for the curve profile.

Step 194: Just as we used the round gouges profile to cut the eye pupils and nostril, I am again using that tool to profile cut an area. In this case it's the curve of the lower stem. I have laid the gouge flat against the lower stem then walked, rolled it back and forth slightly, into the upper stem.

Step 195: Here I have my small straight gouge and am rounding the lower stem into that round gouge profile cut.

Step 196: I have teased out the last few fibers with my riffler and now you can see the wonderful curve that the round gouge gave my lower stem. You can also see that these steps have made a small under cut so that the lower stem really does disappear under the upper stem.

You can use the profiles of your tools to create shapes in your carving just as we have done here. A small round gouge makes great fish and dragon scales. Your v-gouge used on profile can make little v impressions for background textures. If you need a small but perfectly straight line use your straigth chisel on it's profile. So, not only can you cut with the tools you have you can also impress them for shapes.

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[Irish]

Step 197: I am also going to profile cut the second stem curl. First I am freeing a small area of the lower stem with my bench knife/chip knife where the two stems meet.

Step 198: I don't want a tight curve here so instead of the large round gouge I grabbed my wide sweep gouge. A gentle push into that freed intersection will round over the lower stem nicely.

Step 199: I am doing one more area with a small under cut. This is the outside edge of the stem and I am just barely tucking the joint line back under neath the stem. This is just enough to hide the joint line.

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[Irish]

Step 200: I am using my v-gouge to dress out, smooth, the remaining intersections where the stem and leaf meet. This is any area that has not been under cut.

Step 201: The left side done I am moving into the right side of the leaf. I don't want
to coup out here because this started with a request to show everything!!! But I am not going to show you each and every step through this area. As a left hander that particular portion of the project is braced in the corner of my bench hook. So to work
that area I have to turn the piece so that the beard tip is now the bracing point. That leaves the left stem area at the bottom of my board where my camera can not possibly go ... the corner of the board is the edge of the table so my camera keeps falling over ... AHHH!

And I am not going to do unsafe carving by trying to hold it while I cut. So far
this has been a blood free project and I, for one, would like to keep it that way

So for the right side of the leave I am doing exactly the same thing I just showed you
on the left side except for a couple of steps ... those I will show you.

The first is that I have lots of room for a very deep under cut on the leaf where it
lies on top of the center stem. I already have a small angle from the earlier rough out work, but I want to really tuck that area.

Step 202: I have marked where I want to put that under cut. Notice that I have left
more than half the thickness above the under cut. Then after this is done I will have room in the leaf wood to roll that top shelf over into a nice curve.

Step 203: This will probably be the deepest under cut that I do on the Oak Man so I am walking the chip knife into the depth by making several cuts ... not one deep push.

Step 204: Because this is a bit of a stickler of an area to get into I did not make the second cut of the under cut. Instead I grabbed my chisel and sliced out the wedge in little pieces. In very hard to reach areas I get the same effect using the chisel, it takes a little longer but is much easier to work.

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