tributesinwood

A New Tool For Christmas!

Here’s the semi-finished version of Michael with some fine sanding completed.  I can see that I’m going to want to do a few touch ups before I call this panel figure complete, but I’m pretty happy with the way that it’s turning out.  As you know, I don’t typically sand my carvings but I’ll be finishing this particular carving in a fashion that’s more traditionally seen in churches.

And here’s the start to the next panel where I was able to use the tool that I found under the Christmas tree!  Actually, I already had the Dremel tool…but, when I was at the last carving show, I spoke with a friend who did a lot of incredible relief carvings and he mentioned how he uses a router base made for the Dremel.

After doing a bit of research, I decided that the best base for my needs would be the one manufactured by Lee Valley.  It’s definitely pricier than some, but the higher quality of the base is obvious.  What this does is allow me to set the depth of the 1/4″ bit and plunge down to trace along the lines of the drawing that I’ve glued in place on the face of the wood.  It saves a bit of time and makes very accurate cuts.

Tomorrow, I’m going to use it to outline the hands, loaf and chalice to gets some depth around those figures as they will be the highest figures carved into the relief.

I wish each of you all of the best in 2017!

Some Carving, Some Wrapping

Yes, I did manage to do a bit of Christmas wrapping between carving.  I’m not saying that I’m a great carver, but I can safely say that I’m a better carver than I am a wrapper ( not to be confused with rapping, which I couldn’t…I wouldn’t… do if my life depended on it ).

Here’s Michael moving along…

Archangel Michael

It’s time to start carving Michael into the second panel of the chalice box.  This one will be a bit more interesting as, of course, there are wings to carve!

I started, again, by using a router with a 1/4″ dado bit to carefully route completely around the outline of the carving to a depth of 5/8″.  The router that I have is variable speed and I used a very slow setting on the router and took a few passes rather than a single plunge of 5/8″ to avoid burning the wood.  From there it was just a matter of using gouges to chisel away the wood to meet the routed channel that I had created.

I then picked the two highest spots…the left hand and the nose…and made sure that all of the other features sloped away from those two spots while checking the clay model that I had done earlier.

But…I have a bit more Christmas shopping to do tomorrow so I’ll have to put Michael away for a short while.

Some Final Sanding

Here’s the sanded version of Mary with Child.  After carving, I used progressively finer grades of paper from 180 to 320 grit to get to this point.  Before I put a final urethane finish on this, I’ll do some final finishing with finer grades of sandpaper.

I’m pleased so far!

Saturday Progress

Well, not a whole day on Saturday…but a few hours work, anyway.  The real event today was watching “Scrooge” with my son, Paul.  Now this is the “real” Scrooge starring Alistair Sims.  I’ve been watching this since I was a kid at Christmas and it’s a tradition for Paul and I to watch it as well.  Kind of scary and not very Christmas-y really…but it’s tradition!

Here’s the work that I completed today and I’m really enjoying the way that it’s shaping up.  As you can see, I’ve started to use and will continue to use sandpaper following the chisel work on this carving to provide a fine and smooth finish to the piece.

Roughing-In

Here’s some initial roughing-in of the image of Mary with child.  It’s coming along pretty nicely.

Even though I knew that I would be carving it about 5/8″ deep and that the clay model was roughly that depth, it still looks surprisingly deep when it’s carved into the wood.  The recessed arch that the image rests within probably has something to do with it looking like a deeper relief carving than it actually is.

I think that the finished carving is going to look pretty sharp.