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Robert Culver
10-31-2010, 9:32 AM
http://i899.photobucket.com/albums/ac193/culverrp01/mywheate.jpg


Ok this was my first attempt at carved wheat . wow then is a maco pic and big it shows my mess ups pretty good I need some glasses or someting dang.......anyway thought I would but it up for advise on doing better work oppions are welcome.
george wilson
10-31-2010, 1:52 PM
If I may offer a suggestion: There is loose chipping in your wheat grains. If you will grind and sharpen the end of tour gouge so that its cutting edge is a bit convex,the two cuts will meet in the center of the grains all the way down in the centers of the "V" where they come together,leaving a nice,crisp grain with no stray chips hanging on.

Deepen the " groove of your wheat's stem.

Be very careful about the spacing of the grains. On the 3rd. pair of grains from the top,the grains are too close to the pair beneath it. Some of your grains are fatter than others. Getting them uniform in both size and spacing is important.

Lastly,walnut is sort of brittle,and not the easiest wood to practice in. Do you have any cherry?
Robert Culver
10-31-2010, 2:57 PM
George thats all really great advise. I agree with all of it infact. I am a little confused about what your saying about grinding the end of my gouge however.are you saying that it should not be square across the end and instead it should have a u shape that would extend deeper into the wood near the center of the grain. I have pretty nice pile of cherry that i can work with I just happened to have that pattern on a piece of walnut that had a crack in it so I grabbed that for practice I will give some cherry a shot infact I have a cherry handle im working and would like to do this when its done so it sure wouldnt hurt to get the feel for it now.
george wilson
10-31-2010, 3:32 PM
Yes,when you look straight down into your gouge,it is ground straight across,as is usual. This does not let the cutting edge get all the way down into the center of the wheat grain. Grinding a small radius onto your gouge will allow the gouge to reach clear into the center,unless you grind TOO SLIGHT a radius.

I don't think grinding a radius will hurt your gouge for normal use. BE SURE the gouge is razor sharp,or it will not give clean,polished cuts,especially on those grains where you are gouging straight across grain.
Marv Werner
10-31-2010, 3:43 PM
Robert,

Does your gouge look like this?
Robert Culver
10-31-2010, 9:15 PM
well i cut a radius into my gouge with a file tonight and got a fairly sharp edge again and it seems to have solved some of the mess at the bottom of the wheat I need to pay a little more attention to that angle that I cut the sides down at because that is a contributing factor also. Thanks for the picture Marv that cleared up alot of my questions I have that in the slide show but my computer has been down an I havent had acsess very much. I hope to practice a bit more tomarow. I will see how it goes in some cherry.
Marv Werner
10-31-2010, 9:41 PM
I included three camera angles of the business end of the gouge.

Walnut is one of the tougher woods to carve. I just did a walnut handle for Mike Wenzloff and it was much more difficult than cherry or beech or maple.

Here are the other two pictures.
Robert Culver
10-31-2010, 9:54 PM
Marv Thanks again It looks like I am right about the same as yours now I think mine just needs some more work on the strop before another test run tomarow....

Rob