Menu
A way to add accent, deeper points of shadow, is with a punch, made here by grinding a biggish nail. You always want to cut the surface before punching, otherwise you'll just crunch up the fibres.
The centre boss can be left without any carved decoration or given some simple detail. Here, I'll show you a traditional way of incising it.
| 25 March 2020 12:33
Hello Chris, Thanks for your response. I have commissioned all my tools following the advice on your videos about sharpening and I am pretty sure I have the correct cutting angle of 15-20°. But I don't possess all the tools that you are using on this video (but I fully understand that I can make do with what I have) and my work bench is a kitchen sideboard between the rice cooker and the fruit bowl; I only have limited access to a workshop so I work where I can. The wood I was working on is indeed 'wooly' but I am not going to blame that for my inept execution although it doesn't make things easier. Two things I have noted on my gouges are that my outside bevel is very slightly rounded as it gets to the cutting edge and, in some cases, the ends of my cutting edge are also slightly rounded; I don't have those sharp corners I ought to have. So it's back to the bench stones and the slip stones I fear. Many thanks. Christopher
| 23 March 2020 09:46
Christopher - It a fairly 'normal'-sized rosette (patera); the sort you'd find on a mantle piece or bedpost. If you are not able to cut the wood cleanly than I thing you have it exactly: either the wood is 'wooly' (fibrous, lacking integrity) or your tools are not sharp enough - and that probably means you have too steep a cutting angle, rather than they edge itself is dull. So check that on a flat piece of wood, lifting the handle as you along you should start to nick the wood at about 15-20 degrees. Single flat bevel.
Well done for thinking that through and arriving at something else to try - it's what learning is all about!
| 20 March 2020 14:54
Hello Chris,
I had tremendous difficulty doing my 'rosette' on the scale you suggested. Either I had a really uncompromising block of lime wood to work on or my tools are dull. So I will do a bit of sharpening and try again; perhaps on a larger scale next time.
It's a very pretty motif and I would like to get it right next time.
Thanks for the class.
Christopher Pearson
