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New wood carving project

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micktoon:
Good evening all , I have been doing a new woodcarving project, after the skull carving I wanted to do something different so decided on a flat plaque with a heraldic rampant lion on it in low relief. I have traced it from a photo in a book and that just happened to be the right size for a bit of lime wood I had, I think its called Linden wood in the U.S .

I started by tracing the drawing onto the slab of wood , then bandsawed it into a round shape and turned it true, then turned in a detail to form a rim to the outer edge of the peice on the wood turning lathe.

This is the blank after being turned on the lathe, I think it ended up under six inches ( 150mm ) overall.


I then decided to put it back on the lathe and turn a recess around the lion so I had a constant depth to aim for around the whole background, this would make it easier to keep the depth constant.


I attached a square block to the back so it can be held in the carving vice for working on.


Then its a case of going around the outline of the subject with the V tool.


Once thats is done as much as you can get into with the V tool its a case of removing the background so that just the design will stand proud, I am already thinking this should have been twice the size as its really fiddly and very easy to chip bits off you want to keep unless every cut is thought about with reference to grain direction. With  the carving having the square on the back it can be rotated to make the direction of cuts easier.





This is the stage I have reached so far , its taken a good few hours, when finished the plan is the background will either be left tool finish with small scoop marks off the gouge or maybe punched with a chequered punch as leatherworkers or silversmiths use and the lion will be rounded off and made as 3D as the depth will allow. Its proving to be far more tricky than I thought it would be so going slowly.


 Cheers Mick.

Stilldrillin:
Looking good already Mick!   :clap:

Watching, quietly.......  :thumbup:

David D

Meldonmech:
Hi Mick,

             A good start take it slow, and make sure your not tired, it is so easy to cock it up at this stage as you know.  A nice piece of timber and a classical subject, what sort of finish have you in mind clear wax ?
   Look forward to the finish
                                                 Good Luck   David

vtsteam:
You're doing a great job! It's tough working the grain changes in something like this.  :bow: :clap:

micktoon:
Thanks for the comments lads  :thumbup: Hi David , yes I am planning on clear wax finish, I was hoping to leave just the tooling marks from the carving tools but as I am doing it I think a punched background will be more likely due to that many tricky small edges to get all perfect for tooled finish, I will aim for the tooled finish and if its not neat enough I will punch the dropped background.

 Cheers Mick.

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