Like I showed in my previous post (https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....of-woodworking!), I am working on some simple relief carving patterns. While it might look utterly unattainable, it is in fact very simple. I am a total beginner, probably wil be forever, but still, here are a few small tricks I found to make the work a little easier. If anyone has other ideas, please add them to this thread!
A short video to make things more understandable:
At first I had great trouble to make nice flowing circular shapes with the V-gouge. Most came out very blocky. A simple trick to improve this is to rest your wrist on the wood and use that like the fulcrum point.
I press down hard with the pinky side of my hand palm on the gouge to controll the forward motion. Yes this is painfull on a V-gouge! Time to grow some harder skin.
I lower the gouge a little when going along the grain, because it cuts a lot easier the across the grain. This helps to cut to an even depth. Hard to see in the vid because I still wobble up and down a lot in an effort to control the damn thing!
I learned to relax my grip on the mallet! First I was gripping it like hell, but holding it more relaxed makes you less tired and improves the work. I also relax my grip on the gouge as much as possible while still holding it down hard enough. That's more a matter of balance.
I see that I give very shallow hits with the mallet, maybe I'll hit it harder when I become more confident.
Hope you enjoy this.
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Originally Posted by Gerald Schram
