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