Continuing with the series of reviews of DVD’s from the SmartFlix Woodworking University, this time I review the DVD: Beginning Woodcarving by Everett Ellenwood.
This DVD is one of two done by Ellenwood, the second DVD by Ellenwood a complete treatise on sharpening for the woodcarver. This DVD covers sharpening, material properties and selection and carving techniques.
The DVD opens with a good tutorial on the anatomy of wood and its properties for use in carving. From there, the sharpening and use of the most basic carving tool, the carving knife are covered. Ellenwood carves a small stylized bird as an example of a piece to carve with the knife to illustrate the process. Sharpening and use of other carving tools like gauges and v-tools are covered next along with a section devoted to tool practice to develop skill with the tools. The section on sharpening is particularly well done – no doubt this is a subset of what is covered on Ellenwood’s other DVD devoted to sharpening carving tools. He does a good job of both describing how the carving tools work as well as presenting a simple method for sharpening them using sandpaper.
With the gauges and v-tools sharpened, Ellenwood moves on to demonstrate their use by doing a relief carving of a flower. His explanation of the process is very well done and thorough. Following, are sections on good woods to carve, how to layout and start a carving project, clamping work for carving and finishing ideas.
This DVD is aimed at the beginning woodcarver to provide an introduction to the sharpening and use of tools as well as some basic projects to get started. I think that it achieves this goal very well. I would rate the sections on materials and sharpening very highly. For the carving examples I would have preferred to see more close-ups of tool technique and maybe the addition of another project, however, that may be better suited for an intermediate DVD on the subject. Ellenwood is well spoken and clearly articulates his vast experience on the subject. For the beginning woodcarver looking to get his or her feet wet on the subject, this DVD is a good mix of theory and practical application.
Don’t forget, if you are a new customer and interested in renting these DVD’s, SmartFlix has offered readers of The Craftsman’s Path a $2 discount coupon for your use. Simply use the coupon code: CRAFTPATH when you check out!
Tags: carving, carving gouge, carving knife, Everett Ellenwood, Sharpening, sharpening carving tools, SmartFlix, woodcarving
Another in the series of reviews of DVD’s from the SmartFlix Woodworking University. This time I review the DVD: Basic Inlay Techniques by Larry Robinson.
This DVD is the first and most basic in a series of three done by Larry Robinson. Larry has a long history of inlay specializing in inlay for musical instruments. This DVD series are a companion to his book The Art of Inlay.
The DVD production is very basic and no frills and Larry’s demeanor is fairly stoic. If you are looking for a Hollywood production with lots of fanfare, you should probably keep looking. However, if you want to learn the basic techniques of inlaying, this DVD should fit the bill.
The DVD covers a good bit on materials and their properties. Even though Robinson uses only Abalone and Silver on the inlay project in this DVD, he runs the gamut on what kinds of things can be used and challenges the viewer to use anything that their tools can cut to achieve a desired result – and to ignore the traditionalists!
Speaking of tools, in the DVD, Robinson shows how with a modest set of tools you can achieve suburb results doing inlay while following his techniques. Included in this section is a discussion on the simple birds-mouth sawing platform and vacuum system for collection dust that Robinson uses during his work.
The bulk of the DVD takes the viewer through the process of developing and inlaying a Butterfly image into a block of wood. This includes the tracing of a picture of the Butterfly and the refinement of that tracing to optimize it for inlay. Of course, the material selection, sawing and filing techniques for each of the puzzle-piece shapes in the pattern are covered as well as the techniques for inlaying and gluing them into the wood substrate. The end result is a very nice inlay using minimal tools. AT the opening and closing of the DVD there are numerous still pictures of Robinson’s inlay work for inspiration and after viewing him do the basic one in the DVD it becomes apparent that to aspire to work like his one must simply master the basic techniques that he prescribes in this DVD.
Don’t forget, if you are a new customer and interested in renting these DVD’s, SmartFlix has offered readers of The Craftsman’s Path a $2 discount coupon for your use. Simply use the coupon code: CRAFTPATH when you check out!
Tags: inlay, Larry Robinson, SmartFlix
Well, I have finally gotten back to work on the Sculpted Rocking Chair – yes, I know it’s been a while!
When I last left the project, I had completed sculpting the seat. With that task completed my attention turned back to more processing on the rear legs.
The rear legs needed to have a 20-degree angled cut from the top of the legs down to the arm rest area along their inside edges. Also, a parallel cut to this one needed to be made at the top of the legs (to match the height of the headrest) along the outside edges. The result will form a parallelogram shape at the top pf the rear legs which will match the angle of the headrest.
These angled cuts needed to be made at the band saw. However, because my band saw table (like most others out there) will only tilt greater than 20 degrees in one direction (i.e. it is limited to about 10-degrees of tilt when angled back toward the saw) I needed to either cut one leg in the reverse direction or to find a way around the tilt limitation.
I chose to create a simple 20-degree jig that could be clamped to the saw table and reversed for each leg cut. This allowed me to make the cuts from the tops of both legs downward toward the arm rest location which is the most desirable direction. You can see the jig in the pictures. The riser blocks beneath the jig are just there so that I had more clearance when rotating the legs during the cut so that they did not run into the saw table.
As, I mentioned, there were two cuts to do on each leg. The first cut was from the top down to the arm rest area. Then the leg was rotated and the second cut was made from the top downward to match the headrest height. In the pictures you can see the cuts as well as the parallelogram shapes that resulted at the tops of the legs.
With these shaping cuts completed I next moved to the seat joint areas of the rear legs. As you will recall, these curves have only been roughed shaped and marked along the seat top and bottom for later shaping. To do this shaping, I first penciled in the curves to meet up with the lines that were scribed earlier with a shallow saw kerf. These curves were based on a 2” diameter circle – the reason for this will become clear shortly.
Next, it was back to the band saw to cut along these curves. The important thing here was to keep the leg balanced on the seat joint area during the cuts. The picture shows the results. With the band saw work completed. I moved to my oscillating spindle sander with a 2” diameter drum and I sanded these rough curves to shape until I just barely met the scribe lines marking the top and bottom of the seat. This resulted in legs that will require only minor shaping where they meet the seat.
With this shaping completed, it was a good time to drill the holes to allow attachment of the headrest. This was done in two steps. The first hole was drilled with a 3/8″ Forstner bit to counter sink for the the screw head. With the leg in the same position I switched out to a 3/16″ bit to drill through the leg for the screw shank. Doing it this way assured that this hole would be perfectly centered on the countersunk hole.
Tags: 20-degree jig, band saw, countersink, Hal Taylor, oscillating spindle sander, Sam Maloof, Sculpted Rocking Chair, shaping leg joint
So, it’s finally the fall season and I’m again getting back into the shop. Man, do I have a lot of work waiting for me! In addition to the always present shop clean-up activities, I have to finish my work on the Huntboard and then get back to the Sculpted Rocking Chair – oh, and let’s not forget that I still have that project for in between projects – the Dreadnought Guitar – still to be completed!
As I’ve stated before, summer is usually a slow time of year for me in the shop. There are just too many other things vying for time in the summer months – and in Upstate New York we have to take every advantage of the little bit of nice weather we get!
I’ve mentioned in a previous post that I’ve been doing a bunch of turning lately. I have been working to improve my skills and focusing more on the design aspects of various types of turned forms. I’ve done a bunch of open bowls and also some semi-closed forms en route to developing my skills to do hollow-forms.
What you see in the (somewhat poorly photographed) pictures is a sampling of some of the pieces that I’ve done over the summer. I did do a few more, but have already given them away to folks that offered up some freshly cut wood for my efforts. As you can see there are open bowls, and semi-closed forms that I used to help develop the ability to cut away under the rim of a bowl.
I recently tried a hollow-form with some green Maple. This was done with the limited hollowing tools that I own (the Sorby Multi-tip scraper and Sorby Hollow Master – the Multi-tip is a decent tool but, I would not recommend Hollow Master). Well, let’s just say that I have more work to do to refine my skills. I had a catch while hollowing and nearly tore the tenon right off the bottom of this piece (sorry for the somewhat blurry pictures). Luckily, the piece did not go into orbit, but the catch was still exciting to say the least. I think this was caused by the awkward curve of the Sorby Hollow Master tool as my not clearing out the shavings frequently enough.
Oh well, the wood was free and I’m learning with every piece that I spin on the lathe. This event also gave me the impetus to order some real hollowing tools to satisfy this addiction…I mean hobby.
Tags: bowls, hollow form, hollowing tools, semi closed form
Recently, I was reading Doug Stowe’s blog: Wisdom of the Hands. Doug had a post there about some testing of new tools he had been doing recently. In the post, Doug discussed that he did not want his tools to allow his work to “self-identify” with the viewer. His feeling is that if someone views his work and immediately identifies with some aspect of it as: “oh, he had to use tool XYZ to do that” then he has missed the mark with respect to it’s design being a unique expression of his creativity.
I tend to agree with this. From my perspective, when we design, we should start with a blank canvas and design from the top down, thinking about the statement we want a piece to make as well as its function, as necessary. We should design from the top down without undue constraints (as much a possible) and when we build (the implementation phase) that should be done from the bottom up. This is where we must exercise our skills and problem-solving abilities as we endeavor to realize the design that we desire. For me, tools do not enter the picture until the implementation phase. If I do not have the tool for the job, then I have to try to find a way to execute the design by some other means. or in rare cases by purchasing a tool. However, I try to never let the tools that I have on hand limit what I design. I posted a comment on Doug’s blog in response to his post that I’ll reproduce here:
Doug,
Interesting thoughts…I agree with what you have said.
I am constantly amazed while reading at woodworking blogs and message forums about all the new tools and gizmos that woodworkers are buying with reckless abandon – often times with no real need!
It sometimes seems that tool acquisition (and display) is the goal as opposed to the use of the tools in pursuit of our craft. I routinely see shops full of all manner of new tools (both hand and power) and purchased jigs and often very little production of woodworking objects.
It is interesting to see woodworkers frustrated and avoiding building pieces that they perceive to require a specialized tool to complete. Ironically, many times all that is needed is to build a simple and quick jig or fixture to accomplish the task.
Woodworkers are missing out on an important aspect of the craft that requires developing skills of problem-solving and design when they avoid creating simple jigs and fixtures as part of their build process. As you stated, without the ability (and/or desire) to do this, our designs will become limited by what we have in our shops and/or what we think we can buy at the nearest woodworking tool outlet.
So, I thought I’d take the pulse of the internet woodworking community regarding this topic. Please let me know what you think by responding to the poll. More importantly, expand on your thoughts in the comments of this post. This is an interesting topic regarding design that I think deserves some discussion. So, don’t hold back, let’s hear your thoughts!
Tags: design limits, hand tools, poll, power tool
