Carving Tutorial

   

I have had many requests to do a tutorial on handle carving, so I desided to document the carving of the gripp on this long sword. It's a long gripp (11 1/2 ") so the process is a bit different than working on a shorter gripp.

First I will lay out the tools I use. There are four essential tools neaded, a pencil, a good felt tipped pen, a strate chisel and a skew chisel.

the bottom chisel is a strait chisel and the one on top is a skew chisel.

It doesn't hurt to have some micro chisels for cleaning out the hard to get areas.

  

I start by planning the knotwork I'm going to carve on the gripp. I look through books with images of ancient celtic and norse stone carvings and wood carvings and try to figure the patterns out on paper, lots of frigin' around with a pad and pencil gives me a good understanding of what initially seem like incoprehensibly complicated designs, they all make sence once you've got your head around them.

Once I have a design figured out, I do a rough drawing in pencil on the gripp. I don't worry about the over under pattern, I just draw all the lines over top of each other, this gives good consistency of width once you start to establish the over under pattern. Drawing the pattern on in pencill first also helps make sure that everything is centerred, sometimes I will erase my first attempt and redo it to get everything fitting right.

Once the pattern is drawn on in pencil, I will draw a more precise image over the pencil, with a good felt tip pen. When working in ink I establish the overlapping pattern, and consentrate on even lines, this is the final step before carving.

It's verry important to keep your chisels as sharp as possible. I start by sharpenning on a block with 1500 grit sandpaper on it, and then I do a bit of buffing to get it extra sharp.

I use a fine polishing compound to avoid removing too much metal.

If the chisel is sharp enough to cut into your thumb nail when you run it litely over it then it is sharp enough.

The next step is to clamp the blade to a tabble and start to cut the lines in with the skew chisel. Basically I am cutting the outline of what I will carve. I apply a fare bit of pressure when cuting in, and earlier this summer while carving a little over enthusiasticly, I cut the end of my index finger on my left hand right in half with the skew chisel... It's important to always pay attention I've learned.

 

Once I have the lines cut in, I begin to cut out the shape of the pattern with the stait chisel, It's important to carve nice round cords so that the knotwork does not apear blocky, the difference between a deep relief and a light reliefe carving on a gripp often has more to do with the attention paid to rounding the lines as opposed to the actual depth of the backround. Handle carving is a balance between asthetics and function and I always have to be mindfull of not carving too deep or I will go through into the tang hole and that will mean starting over from a block of wood, wich is a loss of several days work, and not a happy situation.

As I progress I take time to sand down the carved sections with 120 grit sandpaper, this gives me an idea of how well rounded the carving looks. if it's looking blocky this is the time to go back and sort it out.

 

I've noticed that I never keep the knees in my jeens for long and i wonderred about it, It turns out that as I am carving I often neal in front of the work, I'm usually so involved in the carving that I don't notice. Mabe I should get some knee pads...

Once the initial carving is finished I begin the finishing process, starting with 120 grit and mooving up through six hundred grit sandpaper, I then skip to a 1500 grit to get a nice shine.

Once I have pollished the gripp, I apply several coats of 'tried and true' linsead oil wich I have heated up by boiling the can in a pot of water.Once that has set I finish the gripp by aplying a final coat of buchers wax to seal it. When Oiling the wood I apply a thin coat making sure I cover every bit of wood and get in all the details, I leave this on for an hour and then wipe it off / rub it in. I wate for about 24 hours before repeating this process. the wax and linsead oil finish gives the wood a burnished look that brings out its beautifull natural qualities. In this case I used curly maple and the figure jumps out as soon as I put the first coat of oil on.