Work in progress: Carved panel

[Mike Henderson]

Here's a carved panel I'm working on right now. I hesitated to post it because it looks pretty rough at this point, but that's the way carving goes.

It's roughly 38" by 24" and the wood is basswood.

I'll post follow up pictures as I get closer to completion.

Mike

[Carlos Alden]

Nice lines, Mike. Are you going to totally flatten the background or leave some marks in? Finish ideas?

Carlos

[David Christopher]

Mike, that looks good and Im sure alot of work....what is it going to be.wall hanging, door panel....whatever its going to be it looks good so far

[Mike Henderson]

Thanks for your kind words.

It's for a client. They have someone to finish it. They want it "antiqued" and I don't know how to do that. They've indicated that they want it "smooth" which means sanded but I'll discuss that more with them. They basically had the design - taken from something else - so I'm working from their picture. It's nice when the client knows exactly what they want - makes things move along faster.

It's for the hood over a stove in their kitchen. They recently did some major renovations (and addition) to their beach house - and did a really nice job, I might add. The stove has a vent hood over it, and they want this to fit on the front of the hood. I went there and made sure the blank fit *exactly* before I started carving.

The carving is going slow because I have some personal things going on that are taking a lot of my time. I explained my limitations to the clients and they are willing to wait. I think I can get it finished in a couple of weeks.

Mike

[David Christopher]

Mike, that should look really nice and add alot to their kitchen

[Zahid Naqvi]

Mike, nice to see some activity in the carvers forum. I haven't been able to get back in the shop, just been busy with the kids and the family. I will be following this thread to see your updates.

[Barry Rowland]

Mike, I see that you have the lower right hand design at a more complete
stage than the others. Do you do this as an aid to help with the other 3 designs as far as keeping them consistent with each other?

I'm just getting started with the carving part of woodworking. Just trying
to get a sense of flow to a piece.

BTW I used your suggestions on what sizes of chisels to get as a starting out kit. Should be here next week!

Thanks for all you efforts!

Barry.

[Mike Henderson]

Mike, I see that you have the lower right hand design at a more complete stage than the others. Do you do this as an aid to help with the other 3 designs as far as keeping them consistent with each other?

I'm just getting started with the carving part of woodworking. Just trying
to get a sense of flow to a piece.

BTW I used your suggestions on what sizes of chisels to get as a starting out kit. Should be here next week!

Thanks for all you efforts!

Barry.

Barry - yes, I did do that one quadrant first and I'm using that as a guide as I do the others. As I do the other three quadrants I'm doing one element at a time. So if I numbered them {1,2,3,4} and say that the one more finished is 4, I do an element on 1, then do the same element on 2, then on 3. That also helps to keep things the same.

That's also how I sketched in the design. Using the client's picture as a guide, I sketched the design on one quadrant (I couldn't "copy" because the aspect ratio is different). When I was satisfied with the design on the wood, I used tracing paper to copy the design. You can see through the tracing paper so I just flipped the design to match the quadrant, and used carbon paper under the tracing paper. I then just traced over the design and that transferred it to the wood. It's never exact when you do that but then you use your eye to make adjustments when you're doing the carving.

I probably should have done the "sample carving" on some other wood because I did a couple of things on 4 that I don't really like. But I can modify the other quadrants and people won't notice the small differences. And besides, "It's hand carved!" which means there should be some variation.

Good luck on your carving - I hope those carving tools work out well for you. We'll be looking for pictures of your work.

Mike

[Jim Kountz]

Wow Mike that is awesome looking!! Im glad you take the time to post your carving although I might be a little hesitant to post mine. I finally did the fan carving on the lowboy with a lot of help from your tutorials. It came out just ok, it could be better but I learned alot doing it and hey, it can only get better with time right??

Thanks and the panel looks great so far!!

[David Keller NC]

"It's for a client. They have someone to finish it. They want it "antiqued" and I don't know how to do that. They've indicated that they want it "smooth" which means sanded but I'll discuss that more with them. They basically had the design - taken from something else - so I'm working from their picture. It's nice when the client knows exactly what they want - makes things move along faster."

Ha! That's funny - "antique" and "smooth" (i.e., sanded) don't generally go together. I'm guessing they want it to look like one of the carved English oak panels that European churches of the middle ages are filled with?

You're right that's it's nice when the client knows what they want - except if what they want is contradictory, like the firends I have that want me to build a "Queen Anne" style console cabinet to hide their 20" glass CRT-based television, but also be able to be converted into a desk so that when the TV dies they don't have a white elephant. To say the least, those are two requirements that are difficult to reconcile....

[Mike Henderson]

Ha! That's funny - "antique" and "smooth" (i.e., sanded) don't generally go together. I'm guessing they want it to look like one of the carved English oak panels that European churches of the middle ages are filled with?

You're right that's it's nice when the client knows what they want - except if what they want is contradictory, like the firends I have that want me to build a "Queen Anne" style console cabinet to hide their 20" glass CRT-based television, but also be able to be converted into a desk so that when the TV dies they don't have a white elephant. To say the least, those are two requirements that are difficult to reconcile....

You're right, David. I think their design came from something like that. When the client's paying, and paying well, I do what they want, and smile a big smile. I'm thankful to have the work.

It'd be tough to build that entertainment console/desk, though.

Mike

[David Keller NC]

"It'd be tough to build that entertainment console/desk, though."

Yeah, especially when they want it out of highly figured mahogany and period-correct brasses for less than $2000. I think that's a deal-breaker for me. I'm guessing I'll have at least 2 weeks of labor in it (the design also incoporates 2 drawers, which will be dovetailed by hand, natch), so that'd work out to about $10 an hour when material cost is factored in. Oh well - nothing just about every WW has dealt with - there's no way to compete with factory stuff priced to sell at Rooms-to-go.

Back to the carving - if you wish to learn how to do it, there are a lot of resources on antiquing on the web. While not applicable to this project (since you've already got an agreement to have someone else do the finishing), my thought is that this one would be pretty easy - a wash coat of tinted shellac to darken it, a glaze coat of oil-based gel stain, and you're done. "Extra" would be dmaging the carving slightly by dropping some crushed bricks onto it do give it the "knicks and scrapes" accumulated over a few hundred years before applying the gel stain.

I've done this before and the result is very convincing.

[Mike Henderson]

Yeah, especially when they want it out of highly figured mahogany and period-correct brasses for less than $2000. I think that's a deal-breaker for me. I'm guessing I'll have at least 2 weeks of labor in it (the design also incoporates 2 drawers, which will be dovetailed by hand, natch), so that'd work out to about $10 an hour when material cost is factored in. Oh well - nothing just about every WW has dealt with - there's no way to compete with factory stuff priced to sell at Rooms-to-go.

Back to the carving - if you wish to learn how to do it, there are a lot of resources on antiquing on the web. While not applicable to this project (since you've already got an agreement to have someone else do the finishing), my thought is that this one would be pretty easy - a wash coat of tinted shellac to darken it, a glaze coat of oil-based gel stain, and you're done. "Extra" would be dmaging the carving slightly by dropping some crushed bricks onto it do give it the "knicks and scrapes" accumulated over a few hundred years before applying the gel stain.

I've done this before and the result is very convincing.

Thanks for the finishing pointers, David. I think I could learn it, but I'm just not interested. I don't know why, but it just doesn't appeal to me. I've learned enough to do basic finishing and that's about all I want to learn.

I know a couple of good finishers and I'm *extremely* impressed with what they can do. But they like it, they have thousands of dollars in equipment and supplies, and they've worked at it for decades. I take my hat off to them. I do woodwork and I let them do the finishing (for complex things).

I think it was Clint Eastwood that said (in one of his movies), "A man's got to know his limitations."

Mike

[David Keller NC]

Hmm - I seem to remember that line in "Unforgiven". IMO, it's the best C.E. movie he ever made, including the original Sergio Leone movies.

But the best line from that movie was when the "Scofield Kid" says "Well, I guess he had it coming". and William Munny (Clint's character) replies "We all got it coming, kid". Whoever wrote the script for that movie was inspired.

[Cody Colston]

Interesting design, Mike and you're off to a great start on it.

David, I think the line "A man's got to know his limitations" came from one of the Dirty Harry movies...great line, though and one I quote a lot.