Letter carving

[phil harold]

I want to get good at carving letters, is there any good resources I should look at?


thanks
phil

[Mike Henderson]

Here's one book - Letter Carving in Wood by Chris Pye

Mike

[William Adams]

Michael Harvey's _Creative Lettering Today_ combines several books including one on wood carving.

[phil harold]

Here's one book - Letter Carving in Wood by Chris Pye

Mike

Thanks, I think I can afford that one

Michael Harvey's _Creative Lettering Today_ combines several books including one on wood carving.

Interesting,
I might have to spring for this
I figure if I have to carve letters I better be able to draw them, picked up a cheap set of nibs today.

[Mike Henderson]

I don't like carving letters but what I do is pick out the font I want on my computer, then print the text full size. I then glue the paper to the wood and carve through the paper. Any remaining paper can be sanded away.

Unless you're doing scrip, the tools you'll need are mostly flat gouges. You can substitute standard bench chisels to get started.

Mike

[Mark Yundt]

+1, it's my go to method! At times I have an old calligraphy book I use for monogram type letters with flourishes. The fonts are all that's really needed 'cause carving them is all the same basically.

[Terry O'Donnell]

There are a variety of approaches and techniques - so you can either just pick one and go with it, or you can try a variety of ways and try to extract and use what suits you the best. A lot depends on what scale of work you plan to do and whether you will be using hardwoods as well as softer woods.

In a addition to the two excellent books previously mentioned, another one is "Carving Signs" by Greg Krockta and Roger Schroeder (published by Fox Chapel, 1997). They show how to use a mill knife which is somewhat similar to a chip carving approach - but it lets you work at a larger scale -- with the advantage that you mostly need only one knife as opposed to needing a variety of gouges.

[Mark Yundt]

In my opinion I would hesitate to use a mill knife for large scale work. I've done a number of signs for businesses in outdoor use and to control the cuts a gouge is the best option. I also have a friend who's sole business is carving signs and any type of knife isn't found in his shop. You only need one or two chisels to do effective letter carving almost regardless of the scale of the lettering being done. And the advantage of a chisel is the bevel of the incised lettering isn't flat but slightly curved ( a # 3 or 5 ) and will reflect light much better than a flat surface making for a much more attractive presentation.

[phil harold]

I am sure there is more than one way to skin a cat

The book Terry recommends has a mill knife on the cover, could be the mentions this style of carving

I am interested in all methods, so I can find one that works for me
I am here to learn


Mark, would that incised lettering, slightly curved be concave or convexed?

thanks
phil

[Mark Yundt]

True,, but it can be the choice of a scalpel or a hatchet. Both will do the job.
Don't be fooled by cover art. The ones I've seen, such as the one with the large curved chisel making a cut is a farce. I won't even discuss others I've seen. It's done for the romance of carving,, some wood chips scattered tastefully about and some carving sitting there waiting for the proper chisel to be used. Editors etc. aren't concerned about proper chisels and carving. They're selling you the idea of it and getting you to at least pick up the book. That's their job. My job is carving.
Most letters for incised work tends to look best as I said with a bit of a concave cut to them. That's why I recommend something along the lines of a #2,,#3 or maybe even a #5.
I'd lean towards a 2 or 3,, a straight ( heck , an Xacto can work ) and a V tool. The V plows the way and establishes the depth and center line of the letter. Then follow up with the 2 or 3 creating the sides of the letter which will end up with a slight inward curvature. No matter what style of lettering you're doing , as long as it's incised ,, these simple tools will produce ANY style you wish. Times New Roman,, Block etc.,, ,, you name it. It'll work.
Not the best example but here is something I had at hand.See how the letters reflect nicely? And this was a quickie rush job with a off the cuff lettering.

Here is a link to some other small lettering. I have more that was done across the faces of Altars, signs etc. but not readily at hand. Maybe on my regular site there is some. But here is another example for the Bishops crest.
http://woodcarvingblog.wordpress.com/mark/bishops-crest/7/

[phil harold]

But But his book was the cheapest

Nice work Mark

I am waiting on the books

And will be checking the library for Creative Lettering Today ( it is above a beyond my budget at the moment)


Thanks

[phil harold]

Best wood to practice on?

I have a lot of cherry but it seems very hard compared to Basswood

living here in south dakota the only tall stuff that seems to grow, is corn

[Mark Yundt]

Cherry carves beautifully but as you say it is a bit harder. The Basswood is a good choice for practice.

[Terry O'Donnell]

Mark, you talk about a "slight inward curvature" -- if you picture a "V" (the cross-section of the cut) -- do you mean that each of the straight sides of the V would bow out a bit? If so, is that something that you found worked well for you -- or do you know of any historical examples or anywhere it's been written about?


Thank you much for posting pictures of your lettering - but it's not easy to compare how light reflects with that of a pure V-cut - so I guess I better try it -- but I hope that I understand what you mean - that you're talking about a chasing type of cut, instead of a straight-sided V?


I can understand (and agree!) how you would not recommend using a mill knife. The book mentioned is mainly about using that tool, and is not just a careless publicity thing by the publisher. The authors state that they use it for all but larger letters and for harder woods - for which they show using gouges to chop out the bulk of the wood, and then clean up using a mill knife. I didn't mean to specifically recommend that approach -- it's just that it shows another way of doing it. One of the authors also wrote an article in Fine Woodworking -- titled "Carved Signs: Freehand lettering with the Murphy Knife" by Roger Schroeder -- written about the sign business of Paul McCarthy (again - I'm not recommending - just mentioning it!)

[Derek Cox]

Phil,
I am a new carver who has some of Chris Pye's books and I subscribe to his online carving video website. Attached are some photos of a sign I letter carved recently in a hard native species that exhibits a strong ray pattern, much like Oak. I carved it using exactly the techniques Chris advocates in his letter carving book and in his videos. I used a total of about four chisels/gouges to complete this work - two straights of different sizes and a 5/20 and a 3/ 25 (pfiel numbering system). The letters are 80-100mm high and the font is modern roman. The Gothic letters, carved in poplar, were cut using similar chisels and techniques. Hopefully this shows what is possible using a very basic set of tools - after all letter carving is a small subset of the wider carving genre. I find that what makes letter carving look good is paying attention to design and executing the letters as accurately and crisply as possible - note the M in the gothic font, it was the first one I carved in this font and the errors and over cuts are obvious. Regards

Derek
Image.jpg

Edit: looks like some of the photos are too large, I will try and reduce them and re-post