Detailed woodcarving?

[Draven]

Howdy folks
A while ago I posted a couple Clipper rehandling jobs in the Edge Tools section, and always said I'd redo it with a better wood - well, the time has come! I'm not quite finished, so pics aren't going up yet ;) But seeing as it's a very scandi blade, I figured I'd fit a scandi style handle! And I want to do some detailed carvings - specifically, scandinavian/celtic bands and such. I originate from the Northwest, where there's a pretty heavy influence from both, so I figured it would be appropriate.

What I was THINKING of carving was something like the stuff Bob and Jake at Skye Knives (http://www.knifemaker.co.uk/) do. Such as this (http://www.knifemaker.co.uk/Galleries/progressviking.html). I wasn't planning on anything quite that intricate though.

Ok, so to the point! How on earth do you do that? I mean, really! Tiny little chisels or what? I've done celtic knotwork on a larger scale before, but nothing like that. So, any advice?

Unfortunately I'm not sure what wood I'm using. It's light, pretty hard and not too easy to split... It has seemingly random lines of a dark brown, but they're few and far between. My dad suggested Beech but I'm skeptical.... it looks a bit too light for that.

I'd try woodburning but I've not got the tools, or the money to buy them!

I'm also wondering about inlaying wire - how?

Peace folks, cheers muchly :You_Rock_

[seany boy]

Hi Draven,
s.orry can't offer any advice but that's a nice link and there's some great looking stuff on there.

Really like the sound of what your trying to do and will be interested to see what response this gets.

Good luck with your project and don't forget to take plenty of pic's of all stages :cool:

[Draven]

Hi Draven,
s.orry can't offer any advice but that's a nice link and there's some great looking stuff on there.

Really like the sound of what your trying to do and will be interested to see what response this gets.

Good luck with your project and don't forget to take plenty of pic's of all stages :cool:

Cheers mate :D Yeah, it's a great site, I've known both the makers since I was a kid. Twas them that made me first want to get into Knifemaking actually.
Sadly tis a bit late to take pictures at ALL stages... :rolleyes: I was concentrating more on not cutting myself for a fifth time...... :o

[fred gordon]

Small world Draven. The owner of Skye Knives is a very close friend of my boss! His stuff is really good looking but I'm afraid I couldn't afford it. Good luck with the project.:D

[fishfish]

get a dremmel lookie likee! with the diamond burrs it is possible to do that kind of work and finer! i have on mammoth ivory in the past.trick is practice first,remember to go lightly,its easy to take off but impossible to put back on!
good luck!

[weaver]

You need a couple small carving tools and a bit of practice but nothing impossible there. One of my first attempts since putting away everything to concentrate on computers 20 years ago was a small box for my daughter. She wanted a carving of her harp on the top so, I dug out the tools, ground off the rust, sharpened them up and chipped away till it looked like this bit.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y294/frugalweaver/box.jpg

Not the best but it made her happy. If you can draw or at least trace a design, you can learn to carve.

[cariboo]

A dremel or foredom and some fine bone and wood carving tools. No doubt they make their own knives, gouges and scrapers.
Beautiful work.

http://www.caribooblades.com

[Draven]

Cheers folks :D I'll take a look around and try to get some wee carving tools, and I'll do a test run with the dremel on a spare bit of wood :D
:You_Rock_

[tommy the cat]

You can pick up a small set of wood carving bits for as little as £3.99.
Dremmel type copies are available to.
Dave

[brancho]

My advice is as stated already is to do some practice pices first.

[Ben Trout]

Not much help I know but I'm working on a stave at the moment with a knotwork pattern. I'll try to get some pictures up soon as it may be more use to see what can be done (by a halfwit). So far everything has been done with my Lapp Puukko and my new knife. I have a little fine detail carving knife I made from a piece of hacksaw blade but haven't reorted to that yet.

My plan is to (pyrograph?) burn the recessed part of the pattern then lightly sand and varnish the knots.

It depends on what you want to achieve. Yes a burr in a dremel will give a similar result but using those sorts of tools on wood always feels a bit artificial to me.

Inlaying wire, I would use v gouge or small knife to cut v shaped grooves then epoxy in the wire. The Dremel would do a fine job of that too.

Sorry, more options than answers! Practice pieces are good.

[Ben Trout]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/bentrout/Stave1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/bentrout/Stave2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/bentrout/Stave3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/bentrout/Stave4.jpg

[john scrivy]

nice work ben