Relief Carving Wood Spirit Grape Man WIP

[Mark N. Akers]

Great project Susan,is this in your packet of patterns?

[Irish]

It's from the Woodspirits and Greenman book that Chris, Shawn and I did ... you can see it here:
http://www.foxchapelpublishing.com/s...p=1&FullCat=47

Susan

Oh! And while you are browsing through Fox Chapel books the new Ultimate Scroll Saw Pattern Premium Book has just been released. I got my advanced copies a few weeks ago and Fox really stuffed this one with a lot of great ideas.
http://www.foxchapelpublishing.com/s...cfm?FullCat=58

[Irish]

Step 24: Just wanted to show you guys that we "pros" have messy areas and stages during our carvings
too!

Step 25: I have used both my large round gouge and wide sweep gouge to drop the three lower leave lobes
into position. Now I am going back over those areas with my wide sweep to just clean up some of the rough
ridges left by the hogging out work.

Step 26: I have taken some areas of the leave down the the compass mark, other areas have been left
high. This will help to make the leave area roll later in the carving.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 27: For relief carving I love using a depth gauge. This is a small ruler with a sliding T. The T
can be set at the depth of the wood thickness, in this case 1". Then I can move the depth gauge to any
area of my work and check how deep I have gone and how deep I can still go. You can get a depth gauge at
most good wood working store. Sewing stores also sell something similar, it's a hem gauge!

Step 28: Now that my depth gauge is set to the thickness of the wood I can lay a ruler, or any other
flat object, across two areas of uncarved wood. Here that's the nose area and the edge of the lowest
leave lobe. When I place the gauge into the carved areas I can mark with where it touches the edge of
the ruler and know how deep I am.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 29: Don't have a depth gauge, it's easy to make one out of a note card or piece of a cereal box. I
have a note card and have placed it on the table next to my wood. I can mark the wood thickness with a
pencil.

Step 30: Cut the corner out of the note card at the thickness pencil mark.

Step 31: Cut the remaining edge to a tapered point that can fit into the different tight areas of your
carving.

Step 32: You can use your ruler to mark a line at the top of the notch. This is a quick visual reference for how deep or thick the original wood is.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 33: Remember that compass we used a while ago, well it's time to get it back out. If you put the
compass with the point leg against the thickness line you can mark your gauge for the deepest cut. If
any area of carving touches this line you know you have reached the deepest point that you want to go ...
no accidental carving through to the other side!

Step 34: You can see the paper gauge in place and that I still have lots of room to deep carving around
the beard. I use a paper gauge when I want to have certain areas or elements at the same depth. I can
mark that depth on the paper gauge then easily move back and forth between different areas of the
carving.

Step 35: It's raining again ... sigh! So I am off to work on the upper leaf lobes. I'll post later if the creek don't rise.

Susan

[Irish]

Wednesday, June 28th ...

Step 36: I have made a couple of changes to the traced pattern. I decided that I wanted both grape leaf tendrils to lay on top of the leaf instead of to the back. So I have remarked the pattern lines.

Step 37: I have made wide stop cuts along the tendril, leaf and stem pattern lines. I want the stem to be the deepest, then the leaves will tuck down under the tendrils. I used my bench knife/chip knife for the stop cuts and the large round gouge for the roughing out.

Step 38: You can see me using my depth gauge to check that the stem has been dropped down to my deepest level. That gauge means I can't accidentally, which I have been known to do, over carve the area.

The second photo shows where taking time to make a depth gauge comes in so handy. You can see the penicl mark I made on the side of the project using the compass. And you can compare that to the mark I made on the depth gauge paper ... my stem matches both the side compass line and the depth gauge line ...

Susan

[Irish]

Step 39: I marked the three open areas inside the tendrils with a black pen so that I knew exactly where each one was. Using my bench knife I made an angled cut, pointed towards the center of each open space, on both sides of those open spaces. That pots out a neat small chip. I can deepen these openings as I need to when I drop the
tendrils and leaf to their levels.

Hi_Ho has several excellent photos of this knife grip position in Tips and Tricks ... Please slip over to that thread because his photos shows his hand and how he is balancing that hand with his thumb. That balance point means you can move your hand easily and smoothly while, as Hi_Ho noted, being very safe in your cut.

Step 40: The second highest point in this carving will be the brow ridge, the nose tip will be the highest. So everthing in the upperleaf lobes is carved down from that brow ridge line. I have my two gouges, the large round and wide sweep, out on the table for
this next step.

Step 41: As I work the upper leaf lobes I have come to a tight spot in the corner created by the tendrils. Here I have used my bench knife along the tendril lines to cut a thin stop cut ... that's a one cut only instead of the two cut wide stop cut. Now I have grabbed my small round gouge to lift the corner out.

The thought behind this photo/step is that most of this work is done with the larger tools. But, I always have a selection of sizes on my table and will change out for a smaller size in a tight area instead of trying to force a large tool to do something it's just too big to do.

Step 42: While we are talking about changing out tools for different sizes you may also want to consider the profiles of each of your tools. This large round gouge has a profile (cutting edge) that is a half circle. I can use that half circle profile to make a stop cut where the tendril curves tightly. The gouge makes a prettier cut than I could with the bench knife.

Susan

[Irish]

OK ... for some reason I can't upload any more photos at the moment. I think maybe I blew out my bandwidth allotment .... Sad

So, while I am waiting for Admin to get back to me if anyone has any questions, comments, thoughts or just want some more info on what I have done so far please feel free to ask here on this thread !!!!!

And, if you think I might have missed something along the way, let me know.

Susan

[Linda L]

Susan, I also want to thank you SO much! I have your Greenman book, but pretty much decided I neeed to wait until I was more experienced to use it.

This is SO incredible for beginners! My favorites are the numbering of the layers---never thought to do that, and using the depth gauge.

Wish I could send you some of our weather here in the Pacific Northwest! We're used to rain, but this past week we've broken heat records! In the 90's and we're all in meltdown mode. Tried to do some sanding on a stick, and immediately got too hot! Good time to work on the small "pick up" projects in the shade!

Thanks again, I'm waiting with a child like excitement to see the next installment!Bouncing S

Linda