What's on my bench: Carving
Greetings from San Diego... As I have been working with my automata I have difficulty with what I call the biped. The person. The figure. I've evolved to the point of using basswood. Of shaping the basswood on a bandsaw. And then of using mostly sandpaper to come to "a" final shape. I realize that I need to be able to better control the shape of my wood bipeds. So...I started browsing YouTube looking at woodcarvers. I've found one that I really like. He seems to be wise and to have common sense...and I like the way that he presents himself and his carvings.
Three simple things. I have some basswood on hand. And a pocket knife. I started doing a tiny bit of carving and decided that the knife was not sharp enough. I need to strop it. So I built a strop and have sticks of polishing compound on order. As I was building the strop I found a sheath knife (see image below) that I've had since the '70s. Never used it. So I decided to modify it to make a 1-3/4" carving knife (see image below). The process was not difficult but it did take me about 6 hours. I'm still not satisfied with the blade and am looking forward to stroping it into final shape. The steps I took to modify this knife were:
And then right after I completed that I had a small Swiss Army Knife fail (see image below)...the plastic cover came off of one side. So I disassembled the Swiss Army Knife and used the blade and a piece of Myrtlewood to create a "detail" carving knife (see image below) with a blade about 1-1/4" long. At this time I'm sitting with two carving knives that I've created, a strop that I've created, and polishing compound and more basswood coming in the mail. I feel much better equipped to deal with future bipeds. I'm excited, actually. This morning I spent a couple of hours carving a small hand (3/4" X 5/8"). I did use both of the carving knives and also a scalpel. So that's what has been on my bench the last couple of days. What's on your bench??? Jim Coffee San Diego, CA
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