Wood Carving Tools
Chip Carving Instructions
Tools & General Directions
THOUGH all the designs suggested in this book can be cut with the chip-carving knife shown in Fig. 2, the following additional tools will be found convenient:
- a wood-carver's veining tool, Fig. 3;
- a parting-tool 1/32" to 1/16" wide, Fig. 4;
- a 1" skew chisel. Fig. 5, for the larger chips.
- In flower form rosettes, as in Plate XVII, a carver's gouge of proper curve shown in Fig. 6 is helpful for stabbing.
These cutting tools should be honed to a keen, perfect edge on a fine sharpening stone, stropped on leather, and then protected from all injury by sticking them into corks when not in use. Results can be attained with perfect cutting tools which are simply unattainable with dull ones. For the single purpose of veining (cutting narrow grooves), the veining tool should be sharpened so that the cutting edges of the V slant forward somewhat so that they cut the wood just ahead of the point of the V as shown in Fig. 3. Only in this shape will this tool cut smoothly across the grain.
Since the designs in this book are all full size, it is expected that they will be traced and transferred to the model by carbon paper. Should they not be traced, the following drawing tools will be needed: T-square, 45° triangle, 30° x 60° triangle, 22M' x 67%° triangle, compass, divider, scroll, and ruler. Angles of 15° and 75° can be obtained by adding the 30° angle to the 450 triangle.
After one has acquired considerable skill in carving, not all the lines shown in the design need be drawn, for some of them will result from stabbing and some from cutting the chips. In general the important point to lay out is the point where the knife is set to stab the design.
The first cutting operation is to stab the design, making a vertical cut, the point of the knife being at the deepest part of the incision to be made, Fig. 7. Care must be taken to hold the knife vertical and make the stab coincide with the lines of the pattern. To remove the chip, the knife is held as in Fig. 8 with the thumb held firmly on the work to serve as a sort of pivot on which to swing the hand while forcing the blade of the knife under the chip. In doing this the point of the knife must be kept from going into the vertical wall made by the stab, or into an adjoining chip.
Small chips in straight grain wood should be removed at one cut; large ones, curved ones, or those in crooked grain may require two or more cuts to remove the chip smoothly. A smooth, crisp, clear-cut chip is the only one which should give satisfaction; but one should not give up if this is not obtained with the first trial, for sometimes unsuccessful cuts can be improved by recutting deeper.
In these plates dimensions are always given in the following order: length, width, thickness. The sign for inches is omitted because no model is large enough to require measurement by feet.
Two parallel lines close together (about 1/32) represent a groove. Grooves may be cut with knife, parting tool, or veiner. In the attempt to indicate the valleys, (the deep incisions), by shading, the light is supposed to come from the upper left corner of the page. Before stabbing any pattern, one must have clearly in mind what chips are to be cut out.
Sparklets (little V-shape cuts in the edge of a chip as shown in plate XII I) are best cut with the knife held nearly vertical.
To add crispness to the carved pattern, it is sometimes necessary to stab it all again and thus clearly emphasize the deep places, the divisions between cuts.