The space between

[Dan Barr]

This is my first carving project. its a plaque for a friends first born son. its on white oak and will have a walnut border later on.

how do you get the space between all those letters clean and neat?

Ive been thinking about this. I could dye the relieved portions darker. I could painstakingly scrape them as smooth as possible.

anything else i could do?

Thanks,

Dan

[Joel Ficke]

Small files (riffler), small scrapers, or even a skew chisel all help. Really boring work isn't it.

[Dan Barr]

its boring alright. but at the same time, it puts me in a meditative state like few other things do. i just kinda zonk out while working and the only thing going through my mind is carving. nothing else.

thanks for the advice on the files. i have a basic set of small scrapers. and i made myself a micro skew last night. i'll put it to work.

Thanks,

dan

[Sam Yerardi]

One of the hardest things to learn with carving (as with most creative efforts) is learning/knowing when to stop in the creation. In engineering we call it creeping elegance. Simpler is always better, but there are some instances where a little more adds dramatically to a design in a positive way, or detracts dramatically. It's a subjective thing. You might try what you are considering on a scrap piece and see if that's the direction you really want to go in.