See previous post here: Part 1

Before I talk about the sign, I want to mention that I think there are still a couple open slots in my wood carving class this Saturday April 12, 2014 at Rockler Woodworking Store in Northgate (Seattle, WA).    It’s a two day class, and I start with the basics and work up to more complex stuff.

Letters outlined

Tonight I finished outlining the letters, and finished most of the major detail carving for the center area.  Things I learned…  Super glue is handy to have on hand, and thin letters in soft-ish wood is not necessarily a good idea.  And yes those things are related.

The Alder is nice to carve, but it’s a bit soft and the thin legs on the letter had occasional problems when I slipped or pried even slightly off course.  I had to replace four different chunks, and the S could not totally be repaired.  Regardless I’m pretty happy with the result, and I’m going to be calling this a “Prototype” anyway.

Majority of the letter work done.

I just need to finish up two of the round bits, and four S scrolls around the out side.  A coat of Shellac should make it pop a bit, but over all it’s been a fun experiment. I definitely need to pay more attention to the general widths of the letter parts.

The outline of the letters was actually easier than I anticipated, and I did the bulk of the work with three chisels.

Flat chisel for straight areas.

Small medium curved gouge for the finials and bases on the letters, and some of the tighter inside curves.

Small flat-ish gouge (probably a #3) for outline the gentler curves.

I ended up using a fair number of other chisels because I had them, but I think I could have done almost everything with those three.  It’s a case of using what you have to fit the outline you want.

I’m actually considering offering a one day class on letters both V-chisel incised Times New Roman, and a bolder font done like my sign above for bigger stuff.  After I get through the relief carving class, I’ll see what Rockler wants to do in that area.

Badger

As I was preparing to teach my upcoming carving class, I realized I didn’t have a sign.  So, I thought I’d warm up my carving muscles for my class and demo, and make a sign for Badger Woodworks at the same time.

I started with some the Alder I’ve posted about before which I’m running a little low on, and glued three sections together to make a larger panel.  I used Hide Glue and a bunch of clamps, and it worked like a charm.  The wood has some funky grain in a few spots, but otherwise seems carve-able.

Staring the Layout

For this layout I started with a border around the edge, and set circles in the corners. I played around with proportions until I got something where I could put two S scrolls along the bottom, and a single one up the sides.  Putting the roundel or circle in the corner made it easier to layout, and gives me lots of options for designs.   I tried to do some strapwork based on the circles on a previous design and nearly drove myself mad trying to make it work with the proportions so I skipped that this time.

Since I knew I was going to put my shop name in the middle, I sub-divided my remaining space and used the center line to create two half circles at the ends to bound the middle space. I’ve seen a bunch of corner/triangular space filling designs in other chests and I thought this might be a good place to experiment with those.

Carving the Scroll work

With the layout basically done, I started setting the scroll work, and relieving the background.  I knew I had the carving demo coming up so I deliberately didn’t finish the outside edge so I could use it for examples in my demo.  I experimented with a half button inside the loops, but I’m still not sure the design element works here.

Outline of the text and filling some space

For the text I went to my trusty word processor, picked a good font and started playing with layout.  Once I felt I had something good, I started printing out samples and laying them on the wood.  It took four tries to find the right spacing and layout.  Once I had that I taped it down with blue tape, and went over the outlines with a pen directly on the paper pressing down HARD to make a dent in the wood below.  This left a nice impression that I was able to follow later to make the letters.

I knew that “Woodworks would be much longer than “Badger” so I had to fill in some space as well.  I tried free handing the design but I’m not sure it works as well as I was hoping, something I will need to practice some more.

To outline the letters I set in outline with 3 different chisels, a small medium curve gouge, a slight larger gentle curved gouge, and a straight/flat chisel.  I was able to do almost every single curve with these two gouges.   I had to be very careful on the thinner legs of the letters and already chipped one out which I had to glue the wood back in.  Then it’s just a matter of relieving the outside, and texture punching the background.

More to come later as I finish the project.