I'm going to do this tutorial over time. That is, I'm going to post some information today and I'll post more tomorrow, etc. as I complete the tutorial. I hope this gives you more time to digest the information and think about the process. Let me know how it works for you.
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Initial Discussion of Applied Carving
First, why do applied carving? Why not just carve your design into the wood directly?
It's possible to carve a design into wood and have the design stand proud of the surface by cutting back all of the wood except that of the design (this technique is known as "carving in the solid"). But there's some problems with that approach.
The first problem is that it's wasteful of wood. Let's say you want your design to stand proud by a half inch. That means you have to buy thicker wood, which is more expensive.
The second problem is the amount of work required to work the wood down (the area that is worked down is called the "ground", perhaps a short hand for "background"). It's also very difficult to get the ground flat with carving tools. Additionally, if the design is one that required cutting downward to outline the design, it's very easy to slip and put a "gouge mark (or ding)" into the ground. It takes very good tool control to carve things "in the solid".
The third reason is that applied carving allows for mistakes. Let's say you have multiple things to carve, such as the multiple shells on a Townsend chest. You want to carve it "in the solid" and you complete one of the shells. But on the second shell, you make a bad mistake. You now have to start completely over. You not only have to re-carve the second shell, you have to also re-carve the first shell. This puts a lot of pressure on the person doing the carving so they're less likely to carve fast or with abandon (which might be more creative).
And, in general, there's no real advantage to carving "in the solid". It's true that the grain will be continuous but with carved elements and the wood that's generally used for carving, you won't see the grain to any great extent.
Our woodworking ancestors of the 18th Century almost always used applied carving - there's only a few examples of "in the solid" carving. Our woodworking ancestors were business people who needed to minimize costs and labor in order to make a living.
Okay, so we're going to do an applied carving - what wood do we choose for the carving. [Answer] We should use a cutoff from the wood that the carving is going to be applied to. That cutoff needs to be selected well - you can't just take the scrap. You need to carefully select a cutoff that matches in grain and color. You want that piece of cut off to look like it's part of the wood where you will apply the carving. As the wood ages, it will change color. By using the same piece of wood, you have a greater chance that the carving and the ground will "age" the same. If you use a piece of wood from another board, there's a good chance that it will age differently and will "stand out" from the ground and not look like it is part of the ground. You may not see this problem for years. It's really discouraging to see a piece that you put so much work into look worse with age, instead of better. So when you buy a piece of wood that will be used for applied carving, make sure you buy enough that you can get good carving blanks from the same piece of wood. And make sure you can get a couple of carving blanks from it. If you make a mistake in your carving, you want enough wood that you can start over and not have to buy a whole replacement piece.
The next question is "Which way should the grain of the applied piece run - vertically or horizontally?"
The answer is "it depends on the way the grain is running on the wood you will apply the carved piece to". That is, you want the carved piece to have its grain running in the same direction as the ground. There's a couple of reasons for this. The first is that it looks better to have the grain all running in the same direction. If someone can see the grain and the carving is applied cross grain, it looks odd and it's an absolute tip-off that the carved piece is applied. You want your applied piece to look like it's part of the ground - you want it to look like it's carved "in the solid."
The second reason is that the applied piece will stay attached longer if it is not applied cross grain. Wood moves and if the carving is applied cross grain, the two pieces will not move together but will always be moving opposite each other. Over time, there's a good chance that the glue may give out because of this movement and the applied piece will fall off.
So when you're doing an applied carving for furniture, take your carving blank from the *exact* same board as it will be applied to (and choose the piece carefully), and orient the grain on the carved piece so it will align with the grain of the wood that it is applied to.
These considerations do not apply to the wood you use for this tutorial. You're probably not going to use the shell you carve - it's just a learning project. If you have one you want to use, it should probably be the next one you carve.
More to come...
Mike
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Originally Posted by Phillip Bogle
