First Ball & Claw, Critique & Advise Requested

[Rob Luter]

Robert -

Given time I'm sure I could come up with some constructive criticisms. I don't have that much time. It looks great. 'nuff said.

- Rob

[Matt Bickford]

The pamphlet from the Olde Mill is much more in depth than the Bird or Landon articles. It's probably 15-20x more descriptive. I remember it being a little pricey. It was a good buy for me. Since you've already done one you may be dissappointed. I doubt it, however.

[Robert Rozaieski]

Thanks all for all the feedback so far! It has been very helpful. Based on the comments received so far, I made some changes to the foot (couldn't really add a calf to the leg itself, sorry Mike ).

First, I removed the third knuckle from the rear toe. This made a huge difference in the appearance when seen from the side. I also took the top knuckle down a bit on the remaining three toes making it slightly lower and also thinner as I felt it was just a little to wide and square. Third, I worked on the ball a little. It looks a little better to me, however, the top still looks lower in the two rear quadrants than it does in the front two. This is something I will need to work on on my next attempt. I'm still not sure how the top of the ball ended up lower in the rear sections than in the front sections as I marked the top of the ball on all four sides before I began carving. I will just need to be more concious of this on my next try. Thanks again for all the feedback and encouragement and please feel free to add additional comments on the improvements in the pics below.

The first is a shot from the front, the second from the back, the third is a pic of the left side of the foot and the fourth is of the right side.

[mike holden]

Looking really good here!
Are these users? I did not see any mortices. (mortices or whatever joints should be done BEFORE cutting the cabriole)
In any case, they are good enough to use.
You can keep whittling, and trying to make it better only so long, before it all goes wonky on you.
If these are practice legs, then stop, and make some new ones. Then you can see where you get better.
Good job, but as we said in the office: At some point in the project, you have to shoot the engineer, and build the d**n car!
Mike

[Mark Stutz]

Robert,
Having never done this, I couldn't comment on the first pictures, though I agree, something just wasn't right. I think you've nailed it on the revision. I would be more than happy to have these in my living room.

Mark

[Robert Rozaieski]

Looking really good here!
Are these users? I did not see any mortices. (mortices or whatever joints should be done BEFORE cutting the cabriole)Mike

Thanks! No mortices, this is a practice leg in basswood. I certainly would not want to chop mortices now ! The plan is to do at least one more practice leg before I cut into any good wood. I may try to leave a little extra material on the knee of the next practice leg and add a knee carving to that one just for fun. Haven't done one of those yet. I'm pretty happy with this one and am not going to make any more changes to it. I'll try and work on what needs improving on the next go round. As you said, sometimes you just need to know when to stop.

[mike holden]

Robert -
regarding the carvings on the knees. I was taught NOT to leave any extra wood. the carvings are not deep and outlining is mostly a matter of creating a slight dip around the perimeter. Shells are easy to layout, use your gouges to define the lobes, a normal chisel to create the dip, and a veiner to separate the lobes and voila!
Mike

[Brian Millspaw]

Here are some photos of the type of ball and claw I make. The ball is more squat than round and the side claws are raked back at a slight angle

hope this helps