inspiration for future work

I like to carve the valley areas first and then the ridges that connect them. I have found in the past that if I carve from one side of the board to the other carving the valley and ridges at the same time I end up carving a valley/ridge curve that looks more like a sine wave curve, and for some reason it looks very artificial. By carving the two complete valley's and then carving the ridge that connects them I end up with more of a catenary arch shaped curve and it looks more natural to me.

I stepped back to snap this picture and I really like the contrast of the carved areas vs. the un-carved areas. Noticing things like this influences my work a great deal. I'm not sure yet how I will use this or when but eventually it will show up in a future piece.

Robin

A simple jig for carving the border

When carving the bevel on the border it is easy to determine the 15* angle where the border meets the creek bottom due to the guide I used when routing out the creek. For the areas that do not go the full 1" depth of the creek and are not adjacent to the creek getting the correct angle can be difficult. To solve that problem I use the little block of wood in the above picture as a guide for my chisel in establishing the correct angle and the correct width of the border. It is remarkably accurate and simple to use.



credit card protection in the shop

I started saving those little fake credit cards that banks include in junk mail applications to use in the shop as glue spreaders. I have found a few other uses in the shop for the thin sheets of plastic and for this project I have been using them as a guard to protect the bottom of the creek as I carve the very bottom edge of the banks of the creek. In some of the other pictures on this blog you will see a patchwork of thin boards in the bottom of the creek. These were used to protect the creek bottom while roughing out the carving and even for carving the bank of the creek down to that point. Because the creek is the lowest part of the carving it seems to be a sort of catch all for tools which could also mar the flat surface.

The thin plastic cards work very well for protecting an area from accidental scaring with a gouge. They are thin enough to allow me to carve very close but hard enough to protect the area I don't want carved from and accidental mark from the very sharp corners of the gouge. The cards are thin enough to be easily cut to fit in any odd crevices or corners. I would have to say these little cards are the best junk mail I have ever received.

Robin



ergonomics

The picture above is of a good balanced stance for carving. Unfortunately it is not the stance I used for the first week of carving on my current project, and it has cost me a bit of an injury. In a proper stance the wrist is straight and the tool is in line with the forearm. In use the elbow is held close to the body and the feet are placed with the offhand foot in front but with the weight centered over both feet. The cut is initiated by slightly bending the knee of the leading foot and shifting the weight of the body. The fingers of the offhand guide the placement of the gouge and help steer it in the cut. The force or energy required to make the cut is not generated by the hands or arms but by the weight of the entire body.  This motion is easily repeated with little effort, and this way of carving sets up a rhythm that is very meditative and allows for extended periods of time at the bench.  It is not the only technique I use but it is the way I carve the cross grain texture and refine the shape of the rolling hills

I have an extremely small shop and I tend to use my table saw more as a work bench than as a table saw. This is usually not a problem even though it is a tad tall for a proper work bench height.  Add the 2" thickness of the wood I am carving and my table saw/work bench became a problem that lead to a repetitive stress injury.

This may at first look like the same picture but there are some very subtle, and very important differences. In the first picture I am standing on a 2 1/4" tall platform and the work is at the proper height for me to have an ergonomically correct stance, and in the above pic I am standing on the concrete floor which puts the work at too tall of a height. In both pictures I am holding the same gouge and it must be held at the same angle to the wood to make a cut. With the work too tall like in this picture it causes me to hold the handle with my wrist bent at an angle. Rather than transferring the force directly to my forearm like in the first picture, bending my wrist put all the force of the cut on my wrist. This would not have been a problem for a few cuts but after a significant time of carving with poor ergonomic form over several days my wrist became painfully sore.

I have plenty of patience while working but where I fall short is when I am not working. Once my wrist feels a bit better I can't help but pick up a gouge and try carving. I did finally take a week off from even going out to the shop to let my wrist heal and as I get back to carving I am trying to go slow so I don't over work whatever it was that I injured. It has been a good lesson in not forgetting some of the most basic techniques when working- good ergonomics. 

One of the things I like to repeat about safety is that with a router mistakes happen at 20,000 rpm,  a nod to how quickly things can go wrong when using power tools.  Mistakes like working with injury inducing ergonomics can be just as serious if less dramatic. 

Work safe

Robin

Carving an area from start to finish

I thought I would try something a little different for today’s post.  I have a nice series of pictures taken from roughly the same vantage point and showing how the carving develops.  In the picture above I have roughed out the area where one of the creek banks joins the border detail.  Up to this point I have only used my favorite gouge, my 1" wide #6 sweep Addis. All the carving up to this point was done without a mallet and by pushing the gouge from the top to the bottom. You might notice a small blowout in the middle, this was an indication that the grain had changed and I needed to change the direction I was pushing the gouge.

In this picture I have changed directions and I am now carving from the bottom to the top, the marks left by the gouge look the same. I continued to refine the overall shape of the bank. In order to shape the bank where it meets the creek I had to push the gouge from the right to the left, this produced a noticeable ridge

In order to get rid of the change in the direction of the carving marks where the bank joins the creek I switched to a #29 Barton spoon bent gouge.  A spoon bent gouge is pretty much exactly what the name implies, the end is shaped like a spoon with a razor sharp edge.  Spoon bent gouges are somewhat limited in the ways they can be used, they are not very useful for roughing out or for making long delicate cuts.  But where they excel is in removing stock in difficult to access places.

I next used a 1/2" wide front bent #5 sweep Buck bros. gouge to refine the area between where I had used the spoon bent gouge and the #6 Addis.  I would have used the #6 Addis but I needed the bend to be able to reach lower on the bank and still be able to carve in the same direction.  This also helped to blend the marks left by the different gouges so that the carving has a more cohesive uniform look.

I next focused my attention to the border detail and switched to a 1/2" wide #5 sweep Addis fish tail gouge. The difference between a standard gouge and a fish tail gouge is that on a standard gouge the width of the gouge is the same over the entire length of the blade and the width of the cutting edge stays the same as you sharpen it. With a fish tail gouge the width of the gouge tapers from the cutting edge to the handle and as you sharpen it the cutting edge slowly gets narrower.

The template I used with the router left a straight edge where the creek meets the border, It also allows for me to carve a 15* bevel in the inside edge of the border. I used a marking gauge to make a mark at the top and then used my 1/2" wide #5 sweep Addis to remove all but about 1/32" of the waste that will ultimately be the beveled border.

I then used a 1" wide E. A. Berg paring chisel to finish the surface of the bevel. I have written about being partial to Addis carving tools and I have to say I am equally partial to the paring chisels made by Erik Anton Berg of Eskilstuna Sweden. They hold an edge incredibly well even when sharpened to a rather low angle and are used in tough hard woods.

A little clean up where the flat of the bevel meets the carved bank and this area is finished.

Robin

A switch back

In this picture each arrow represents a chisel cut and the direction of each arrow is the direction the chisel was pushed to make the cut. If you look at all the arrows you will notice that near the center bottom of the carved area the arrows make a 270* change of direction. This is called a switch back or in an older vernacular it is referred to as rowey grain. Ideally all the arrows should be parallel to each other.

From looking at the grain on the edges of the board I have a very good idea of which direction to push the gouge to make the cleanest cut. Often I will need to adjust this a bit and in the above pic if you look closely the predominant direction of the arrows is slightly different than the direction of the grain. This slight variance from the true direction of the grain is not uncommon and it is also not uncommon for this to change slightly across the board and as you carve deeper into the board. It is not regarded as a problem and reading these slight changes is something that comes with experience and is learned relatively quickly. The radical change in direction seen in the picture is not something that you can learn to read, it is more akin to something you react to like a boulder falling into your path on a road. And just like with a boulder in the road if you are not paying attention you will also have an accident when carving rowey grain.

Everything I have written so far pertains to carving with the grain. When carving I actually want the drain to have a slight direction to the fibers from the bottom of the board to the top so that I can sheer them cleanly with the gouge from the beginning of the cut through to the finish of the cut. This slight direction of the fibers is essential to having control of the cut, to being able to control the depth and direction. In this style of carving it is possible to make chips so thin that you can read a newspaper through them if the gouge is sharp or up to 1/4" thick. Without this slight direction of the fibers I lose control and rather than being able to control the depth and direction the chip will split out at a random depth and direction, often opposite of what I want. This is what often happens when carving rowey grain wood.

An alternative style of carving is across the grain. When making cuts across the grain the fibers are shared but not quite as cleanly. There are a few tricks to improving the surface when carving across the grain such s holding the gouge at a slight angle to the direction that it is being pushed so the edge shears the fibers at an angle. The angle you hold the gouge at will be slightly in the direction the grain runs if you were carving with the grain. Another technique is to twist the gouge as it is making the cut; this accomplishes the same thing as skewing the cutting edge. Both of these techniques are best done when free hand carving without a mallet and are more physically demanding. The one advantage of carving across the grain is the blowouts due to rowey grain are fewer.

Some of the carving on this project will be done with the grain but the majority will be across the grain. I chose to do cross grain carving primarily for the visual texture created by the carving marks left by the gouge contrasting with the grain. This visual texture is very subtle but it is something I find myself drawn to in many of my projects.


Robin

transitions

I decided to start carving at this corner and the transition between the creek banks and the border. The transition line between the field and the border needs to be a sharp crisp line almost like the border is a separate applied board. In some ways it might have been easier to just glue a board on the edge after all the carving is done, but this would have had its own problems.

A board will expand and contract with seasonal changes in humidity. The rate of movement varies according to the grain and the species of wood, but the curious thing is that this movement will only happen in the width and thickness of the board and not along its length. I expect the width of the headboard to change by approximately 3/16" between summer and winter. If I glued a board on the edge to form the border the boards on the ends would not change in length and the joints in the corners where those boards joined the boards on the sides would open up and form a noticeable and unsightly gap.

When making a cabinet door a similar problem is solved by designing the large panel so it can float in the frame and the amount of distance it can float must equal or exceed the amount of expected movement. I could have designed the headboard with a similar frame and floating panel but it would require a gap around the perimeter which would show as a dark shadow line and I wanted something much more subtle. I felt a shadow line would have become too strong of a focal point and drawn too much attention from the field.

I wasn't sure what I was going to say about this picture, in some ways it is just a picture of the process of making. In another way it is a documentation of the work yet to be done.

Robin