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Mike Henderson
10-10-2008, 2:08 PM
Here's a couple of early American fans I carved recently. Wood is mahogany.

They're pretty easy to carve.

Mike

Gord Pat
10-10-2008, 4:44 PM
Well done Mike crisp and clean. :D

C Scott McDonald
10-10-2008, 8:42 PM
Really nice Mike! Any details to be shared?

Scott

Mike Henderson
10-10-2008, 11:37 PM
Really nice Mike! Any details to be shared?

Scott
I'll share anything you want to know (that I know). But I'm not sure what you're looking for. I'll be teaching how to carve the first fan this Sunday so I could take some pictures of the steps in the carving if that's what you'd like. Let me know what you want in the line of details.

Mike

[The only thing that's a bit tricky is the cuts at the end of each fan element. The reason is that the bottom of each cut is rounded. You could modify a gouge for each cut - make the end of the gouge rounded - but that would restrict the gouge to making just those cuts (you then couldn't use the gouges for anything else). So you have to be a bit inventive in the use of your tools to make those cuts.]

[BTW - here's another picture of the second fan which shows the shape of the fan elements a bit better. I made them undulating from the center to the outside. The picture in my first posting doesn't show that third dimension very well.]

Vic Castello
10-11-2008, 8:30 AM
Beautiful pieces...Mike

Especially in mahogany which isn't easy to work with, and I know you spent a fair amount of time keeping your tools razor sharp because this wood demands nothing less! I just finished a piece in mahogany which I will post on a separate thread. Parts of it gave me fits, but there is nothing like a mahogany piece when it is all done.

Nice work!

Dewey Torres
10-11-2008, 9:13 AM
Mike,
Nice work as usual from you!

All,
There is a great article in the November issue of Pop Woodworking on pg 58 by Glenn Huey. It covers the process for these from beginning to end.

Mike Henderson
10-11-2008, 11:59 AM
Mike,
Nice work as usual from you!

All,
There is a great article in the November issue of Pop Woodworking on pg 58 by Glenn Huey. It covers the process for these from beginning to end.
Thanks, Dewey.

There's also an article on carving a fan in Nov/Dec issue of FWW (issue 201), pages 92-94, by Phil Lowe. That's the article that inspired me to carve these. The FWW article covers the first fan in my posting.

Mike

Dewey Torres
10-11-2008, 5:20 PM
Mike,
I have seen these on drawer fronts and other frontal decorations. What are you building? Just for the class?

Von Bickley
10-11-2008, 5:25 PM
Mike,

Great looking work....:)

Mike Henderson
10-11-2008, 5:48 PM
Mike,
I have seen these on drawer fronts and other frontal decorations. What are you building? Just for the class?
Yep, just for a carving class. These fans were used on the center drawer of lowboys - and on other furniture of that same era. But these are just for teaching.

Mike

randall rosenthal
10-12-2008, 8:13 PM
nice work....real clean.

Robert LaPlaca
10-17-2008, 7:55 AM
Mike,

The fans are beautiful.

If you don't mind me asking how did you go about carving the scallops without a modified tool?

Mike Henderson
10-17-2008, 11:34 AM
Mike,

The fans are beautiful.

If you don't mind me asking how did you go about carving the scallops without a modified tool?
Robert - Thanks for your comments. I used two techniques for cutting the ends of the fan elements - both worked.

One was that I used a knife to make the straight down cut (along the curve of the shell). That allowed me to vary the depth of the cut. Worked okay. The second technique was to use a narrow gouge with the correct sweep, and plunge cut in several plunges. But the plunge cut was not made directly downward - it was made at an angle so that the cut was deeper towards the middle than at the end. Also worked okay.

To make the inward cut (on the first fan) I used a #7/25* gouge and cut until the corners of the gouge reached the previous (downward) cut. Be careful not to go too far in or you'll mess up the corners. I then withdrew the gouge and cleaned up with a #5/5. The reason for the #5 is that I wanted the corners of the gouge to be above the cut so I didn't leave lines in the cut.

For the other fan I use the same technique but I don't remember the exact gouge that matched the cut.

If my explanation is not clear, let me know and I'll take some pictures and post them.

Mike

*The #7/25 makes a deeper cut than a #5/25. I preferred the deeper cut look. Try a #5/25 cut first and see how you like it. You can always follow with a #7/25 if you want it deeper. You can also control the depth a small amount by the angle you hold the gouge when you make the cut - but changing to a #7 has more impact.

Mike Henderson
10-17-2008, 11:40 AM
Also, just a general comment. On the second fan, I think I put in too many fan elements. I think it would look better with less elements - it's too busy.

I stepped off the elements with a set of dividers so I could have reduced the number of elements fairly easily - and next time I do one I will. This fan has 22 elements (18 in a half circle and four below the half circle). I think I'll do the next one with 18 total - 16 in the half circle and two (one on each side) below the half circle.

When you look at the fans "in person", the first fan, which only has 12 elements, looks "cleaner" than the second. Maybe that's a modernistic influence but that's my opinion after looking at them for a couple of weeks.

Mike

Robert LaPlaca
10-18-2008, 7:32 AM
Robert - Thanks for your comments. I used two techniques for cutting the ends of the fan elements - both worked.

One was that I used a knife to make the straight down cut (along the curve of the shell). That allowed me to vary the depth of the cut. Worked okay. The second technique was to use a narrow gouge with the correct sweep, and plunge cut in several plunges. But the plunge cut was not made directly downward - it was made at an angle so that the cut was deeper towards the middle than at the end. Also worked okay.

To make the inward cut (on the first fan) I used a #7/25* gouge and cut until the corners of the gouge reached the previous (downward) cut. Be careful not to go too far in or you'll mess up the corners. I then withdrew the gouge and cleaned up with a #5/5. The reason for the #5 is that I wanted the corners of the gouge to be above the cut so I didn't leave lines in the cut.

For the other fan I use the same technique but I don't remember the exact gouge that matched the cut.

If my explanation is not clear, let me know and I'll take some pictures and post them.

Mike

*The #7/25 makes a deeper cut than a #5/25. I preferred the deeper cut look. Try a #5/25 cut first and see how you like it. You can always follow with a #7/25 if you want it deeper. You can also control the depth a small amount by the angle you hold the gouge when you make the cut - but changing to a #7 has more impact.

Mike,

Thanks for the excellent detail on how you carved the scallops. Pictures would be great..

Mike Henderson
10-18-2008, 2:28 PM
Okay, here's some pictures of how to carve the fan.

98856
The first thing to do is the layout. I'm using a piece of scrap (glued up) mahogany that's 10" by about 6.5". Draw a horizontal line up from the bottom about 1.25" - that will come close to centering the fan.

Next, draw a perpendicular line upward in the center of the board. The intersection of that line and the previous line is the center of your semicircle.

Set your compass to a 4" radius and draw the outside of the fan. Reduce the radius to 3.75" and draw another semicircle. This is to align the scallops. Finally set your compass to 3/4" and draw the center semicircle.

98857
Using a compass, divide each side of the semicircle into six parts (12 fans across the whole semicircle). You can do more or less, of course, depending on your taste.

98860
Draw a line from the center to each mark - that is, lay out your fan elements.

98861
We can now start the carving. Start by outlining the center semicircle. I used a 7/20 for this. Then using a big chisel, do a stop cut along the bottom of the fan, as shown in the picture.

98862
Carve down around the center semicircle about 1/4".

Mike Henderson
10-18-2008, 2:35 PM
98865
Carve back towards the outside of the fan, with a slope from the outside to the center which is about 1/4" deep. Note that this wood has a defect in it that I cut into (a void in the wood). Since I don't plan to complete this carving I'm going to continue.

98866
Redraw the lines that outline the fan elements. It's best if you don't take the lines all the way to the center element. Sometimes it's hard to get the pencil marks out of the corner. You can eyeball the rest of the cut pretty easy.

98869
Use your V tool to carve along each of the lines, to outline the fan elements.

98870
You can use a knife to cut down for each scallop. Just cut deeper in the center.

98871
Use a #7/25 gouge to cut the scallop.

Mike Henderson
10-18-2008, 2:42 PM
98874
Only cut inward until the ends of the gouge are even with the outside of the fan. If you try to cut deeper, you'll damage the outline.

98875
I use a #5/5 to clean up the cut. If you find that the #5 has too much sweep for your taste, use a #3/5.

98876
The #7/25 is a bit narrower than the width of the fan element so use your #5/5 to extend the scallop to cover the whole end of the fan element.

98877
Here, you can see that I've extended the scallop to cover the whole end of the fan element.

98878
The other way to cut the back of the scallop is to use a gouge. Here I'm using a #2/8 gouge and I'm making a plunge cut but at an angle so that I go deeper in the center than along the side of the fan element.

Mike Henderson
10-18-2008, 2:46 PM
98879
Once you make the plunge cuts, the cut with the #7/25 is exactly the same as covered earlier.

98880
I made my V tool cuts a bit deeper, rounded off the fan elements, and sanded the elements with 150 grit sandpaper.

Cleanup and round over the center element after you've done all the fan elements.

That's all there is to it.

Mike

Gord Pat
10-18-2008, 3:49 PM
Well done Mike, great bit of teaching, thanks for taking the time and making the effort, much appreciated .:)

Vic Castello
10-18-2008, 7:24 PM
These pics are great! I love watching knowledgable people carve wood. Makes me want to go right to my own bench to try it. This series of pictures reminds me of a video I own by Mack Hedley done in 1986 (but still available through Taunton Press, I think), only he did a shell instead of a fan. The techniques are very similar. Now I have to dig it out and watch it again!

Clara Koss
10-19-2008, 2:22 AM
beautiful fan work.... thanks for showing it to us....

David Keller NC
10-19-2008, 9:46 PM
Mike - Very interesting set of pictures. Your comment about one of the fans being "too busy" was intriguing. One of the more dissapointing aspects of the otherwise quite nice Phil Lowe article in the latest FWW was the absence of any analysis of period fans and there regional variations.

I've got a pretty extensive library on early American furniture, and there's obviously a great, though subtle, variety in the Q.A. fans of the time. A few of them that my fuzzy memory can recall did have a lot of rays, much like yours. Another observation is that there seems to have been general disagreement among the artisans of the time as to how large to make the central "sun". I've seen some that were huge, taking up perhaps 1/4 of the diameter of the entire fan, while others are quite small.

Nice work.

Doug Shepard
10-19-2008, 9:59 PM
Great work as usual Mike and thanks for the how-to photos. I've always wanted to try doing something with some carved elements. Just out of curiosity, how many practice ones do you estimate before you got them to come out that well?

Mike Henderson
10-19-2008, 10:06 PM
David - thank you for your comments. If you have the ability to scan some of the fan pictures in your books, I think everyone would appreciate you posting them here. In addition to getting an education, it might give people ideas for when they carve their own fans.

We all face a similar issue. When we look at the design of a carved fan (or any early American design element) we see it through modern eyes - our likes and dislikes are colored by the architecture and art of today. My preference for the first fan is probably a reflection of my preference for the simplicity and clean lines of modern furniture design.

Seeing some of the original regional designs would be very interesting and instructive.

Mike

Mike Henderson
10-19-2008, 10:13 PM
Great work as usual Mike and thanks for the how-to photos. I've always wanted to try doing something with some carved elements. Just out of curiosity, how many practice ones do you estimate before you got them to come out that well?

Thanks for your kind words, Doug. I usually do one or more practice pieces but these were both first attempts. They're really not very hard to do, especially the first one.

I taught a carving class at Cerritos college last Sunday and used that first fan as a project for the class. I was filling in for another instructor so the students had a bit of experience - but not a lot. They were all able to carve the fan in a one day class - really a bit more than a half day class (from 8am to about 1:30pm).

Some, of course, were better than others.

Mike

[And just to put a shameless plug in - I'll be teaching a class on carving that fan at Woodcraft in Stanton, CA in January or February (date not set yet). Anyone in the Los Angeles area who's interested can check on the schedule here (http://www.woodcraft.com/stores/store.aspx?id=553&nav=classes). I also teach veneer classes at Woodcraft.]

Doug Shepard
10-20-2008, 5:34 AM
...
[And just to put a shameless plug in - I'll be teaching a class on carving that fan at Woodcraft in Stanton, CA in January or February (date not set yet). Anyone in the Los Angeles area who's interested can check on the schedule here (http://www.woodcraft.com/stores/store.aspx?id=553&nav=classes). I also teach veneer classes at Woodcraft.]

We got Woodcrafts here too ya know. Let us know when you take your act on the road.:)

David Keller NC
10-20-2008, 12:21 PM
Mike - I'll have to ask the moderators whether I can do that. Publishers are very, very fussy about copyrights. Regardless of whether an excerpt from a book would be considered "fair use", I'm pretty sure SMC doesn't want to get involved in a dispute, and there's no doubt I don't want to.

However, there are a couple of free resources that I know there's no issue with. One of them is the recent ability to search and view any of the Antiques Roadshow's appraisals from the last few years.

Here's the link to the search page:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/ (enter terms into the blue "archive" box)

And here's one original example with a fan - it didn't appraise for much because of later alterations to the top and legs, but the fan's original according to Mr. Keno:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/200702A01.html

One item appraised in the last few years was a spectacular spice box with a carved fan:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/200605A52.html

And - the Chipstone foundation has a wonderful digital archive of their collections with extremely high-resolution photographs. I visit this archive all the time to get interior construction views. Unfortunately, I've never found a way to paste a direct link to something in the archive, but you can visit the site by clicking on the "Chipstone and Longridge Collections" at the University of Wisconsin's digital archive site:

http://decorativearts.library.wisc.edu/

Eric Leitner
11-09-2008, 12:09 AM
Hi Mike, here is a picture of my first attempt. And by first, I really mean it, got my gouges friday, have never tried carving before this.
A couple of things I know I did wrong. First was, while roughing out the waste, the gouge slipped and took out a piece of the center circle.
Next and probably my biggest error was when roughing out the waste, I wasn't consistent enough and went too deep in spots, mainly closer to the outer edge. The picture doesn't show it very well but there are hollows and my fans don't have a domed shape everywhere along their length.
I used the bent gouge shown in the photo to do most of the rounding over. Any suggestions on what gouge to use for that? I was pretty happy with it but not having any experience, don't know if something else would have handled it better.
As for the v gouge, I had some trouble keeping it cutting straight lines. Any tips on that? It also seemed to want to remove more stock on the right side of the blade. I am sure that is my technique but once again, not sure how to correct it. I was using a 90 degree v, seems a 45 might be better? Cut deeper but not as wide?
One last thing, should I be using a mallet for all my cuts? Since I am using basswood, I used hand pressure without the mallet for a lot of shaping. Is this a bad habit to fall into? I do want to carve mahogany and other harder woods.
I really want to thank you for the inspiration to try this, never would have if I didn't come across your excellent tutorials.

Eric Leitner
11-09-2008, 12:28 AM
Heres a better picture of it.

Mike Henderson
11-09-2008, 1:07 AM
Eric - for a first attempt at carving, you did well. You have to make mistakes to learn, and to learn how to fix mistakes you make.

Let me see if I can answer your questions, which I'll do in your text.


Hi Mike, here is a picture of my first attempt. And by first, I really mean it, got my gouges friday, have never tried carving before this.
A couple of things I know I did wrong. First was, while roughing out the waste, the gouge slipped and took out a piece of the center circle.
Don't worry about that - this is just a school piece. The secret is sharp tools - it'll give you more control.

Next and probably my biggest error was when roughing out the waste, I wasn't consistent enough and went too deep in spots, mainly closer to the outer edge. The picture doesn't show it very well but there are hollows and my fans don't have a domed shape everywhere along their length.
Yep, I see them. Next one you do, you'll do better. Try to make the roughing cut smooth from the outside to the center circle - just practice.

I used the bent gouge shown in the photo to do most of the rounding over. Any suggestions on what gouge to use for that? I was pretty happy with it but not having any experience, don't know if something else would have handled it better.
I probably would not have chosen that particular gouge for rounding the flutes over but if it works well for you, use it. I just use a regular gouge, fairly flat and cut (mostly) from the outside to the inside. I say "mostly" because you have to make some of the cuts on both sides from the inside to the outside to keep from splitting the wood.
As for the v gouge, I had some trouble keeping it cutting straight lines. Any tips on that?
I don't have any tips on cutting straight except to suggest that your first cut be a light one. And practice, practice, practice.

It also seemed to want to remove more stock on the right side of the blade. I am sure that is my technique but once again, not sure how to correct it.
Yep, that's definitely technique. When you see your V-tool cutting too much on one side, turn it slightly to the other side. In fact, that's how I straighten out a line I cut a bit crooked. I can "steer" the V-tool by turning it slightly. Try it on some scrap.

I was using a 90 degree v, seems a 45 might be better? Cut deeper but not as wide?
I would recommend a 60* V-tool. That's sort of the general purpose V-tool. The others are more special purpose (wider or narrower).

One last thing, should I be using a mallet for all my cuts? Since I am using basswood, I used hand pressure without the mallet for a lot of shaping. Is this a bad habit to fall into? I do want to carve mahogany and other harder woods.
In general, you should be able to do this with hand pressure. You can tap the tool with the palm of your hand, if need be. When you use a mallet, you don't rap the tool but just use it to save your hand. Honduras mahogany is not a hard wood. It carves a lot like basswood. Some other woods are harder (oak, for example).

I really want to thank you for the inspiration to try this, never would have if I didn't come across your excellent tutorials.
You're welcome. Turn your blank over and do another now that you have some experience. The only way to get better is to do it.

Mike Henderson
11-09-2008, 1:24 AM
If people are interested, I'll re-do this tutorial as a separate thread - as long as we can get three people who'll carve it.

Mike

Eric Leitner
11-09-2008, 10:46 PM
Mike, count me in for a redo of the tutorial. I am gonna keep carving it til I get it right. On that note, here is my second attempt.

Mike Henderson
11-10-2008, 12:20 AM
Mike, count me in for a redo of the tutorial. I am gonna keep carving it til I get it right. On that note, here is my second attempt.
Looks much better - congratulations! I'll offer the fan as the next tutorial - as soon as the people who signed up to do the shell post their results.

Mike

Charlie Schultz
11-14-2008, 2:57 PM
When the time comes, I'm up for this one too (and thanks for doing these).

Charlie Schultz
12-11-2008, 6:45 AM
Well, here's my first cut (har har) at a fan. 4" radius in mahogany. Had some trouble with tearout- it's difficult to go "uphill" when rounding over the edges of the blades. The three lighter blades are the result of some sanding.