Carving help on Pie Crust Table Column
snapperhead
| Posted in Turning and Carving on
I am still working on building a Pie Crust Tea Table from Keller book.
I am working on the column carvings now and need some help on making the leaves on the vase come to life. The book only took me so far and I need some more help.
I am going post a couple of pictures and if anyone can offer some help I would appreciate it.
Thanks, Chris.
Replies
Chris, sorry I can't offer any help as carving is something I can't seem to do.
I looked at your pics and want to complement you on what you've done so far. Very nice carving,looks professional to my eye.
mike
You may want to try some slight under cutting on the edges as well as making some sharp stab cuts a little closer to the edge to give a more crisp line.
Plus a little more modelling of the surface ( slight undulations ) can help as well.
If you wet the surface with mineral spirits then take a look at it you may get a better idea of where you can take away some material.
However, the carving looks very nice and you may want to dry fit the top and column and then take a gander to see how it all works.
Sometimes it is best not to meddle too much with these things.
Better is the enemy of good.
J.P.
I agree that undercutting may help a little, but your carving as it stands right now is excellent; it flows well and is quite crisp.
Rob Millard
thanks, Rob. As you can see I am making some progress on my table. Slowly but progress.
I also plan to borrow a few leaves from my wife's ferns and arrange them in a similar fashion and see if they inspire me.
I understand undercutting of the outer leaves, but am I also undercutting the inner leaves as well?
After this the legs are next. I hope they go faster then I am anticipating.
Chris.
I've found it helps me to draw just a portion of the leaf in section and this imprints in my mind the amount to take away when modeling.
snapper,
Your carving looks pretty good to me.
Here are a few things to think about: Try to make the leafage appear as if it is lying on the shaft, not growing out of it. The suggestions for undercutting some areas of the edges will help to accomplish this, and they will make the leaf look thin, not as if it were 3/16" thick. Also, things will look more natural if the leaf doesn't appear to have been smoothed out over the surface of the shaft like a piece of saran wrap. You don't have a lot of thickness to work with, but half the challenge of rococo carving is making it look like there is movement taking place. In addition to modelling the surface with undulations, lap one leaf over the other, carve a tip so it turns over to expose its underside. You can do this using little more than 1/16" in depth.
If you can find back issues of The Magazine Antiques at your library, the ads have lots of pictures. Also a book called "The Philadelphia Chair", by Joseph Kindig, and "American Rococo", by Heckscher and Bowman, both have good photos of carvings. Study the old work then apply the lessons to your designs.
Keep up the good work,
Ray Pine
I have to agrre with most of the posts so far. That's pretty good work and looks like you have a good shadow line already. Very nice job.
As already posted, a slight undercut will allow you to get a crisper shadow line. I have used a texture on the background (I don't think it would be appropriate to your peice). I use a texture when I can't get enough relief. You don't get the shadowline but the transition in texture allows your subject to "pop" out of the carving.
Magnus
"Remember, a bad carpenter always blames his tools" -Joe Conti-
Hi Chris,
Looks to me like you've done a great job setting-in and roughing-out. Your proportions look good, your depths look consistent, and there's a nice sense of balance or symmetry.
I agree that additional modeling and undercutting are going to help to lighten the look of the piece; from here on out, it'll be a matter of reducing the massiveness, creating pleasing textures, connecting myriad fair curves, and balancing hard lines with soft ones to move the eye and create shadows; you're definitely on the right track.
Some carvers sand, others don't. I usually prefer to leave the subtle burnished facets that are the hallmark of hand-carved pieces and eschew sanding, although I have been known to grab a fist full of chips or shavings and rub them vigorously across a carving to add some subtle sheen and burnishing without sanding.
Please post additional pictures when you're done!
-Jazzdogg-
"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Gil Bailie
thanks for your help. I spent a little more time on the column have posted the refinements. I'm going to let the column set a while and start working on the legs. Possible coming back to it again later.
Also attached is my start on the legs. The ball and claw is going to take a while. I'll try to post picture as I progress.
thanks, all for the suggestions and please keep them coming.
Chris.
sorry the pictures are so big, I need help sizing my pictures before I post.
Chris.
Snapperhead,
Just out of curiosity, how many hours do you think you have in the carving on the column?
Progress looks great..
I'm not the fastest carver out there but I have about 40 hours in the column alone.
I still have a few hours left in cleaning up the vase.
thanks for looking. Chris.
Rob, I've run into carvers cramp or something of the nature. I can't seem to get past the stage I am in in the carvings the ball and claw.
The book doesn't seem to get me past the outside toes on the claw and to the back of the ball.
Any suggestions? I've kind of stopped working; worrying I'll mess up all the work I have in the legs.
Chris.
You might want to take a look at the video, "Carving a Ball and Claw" by Phil Lowe which was published by Taunton several years ago. It is excellent as is the workshop he teaches. If Taunton doesn't have it available any longer (which would be a shame) you can try contacting Phil directly as he used to have copies available for sale. Good luck.
snapper,
The intimidating thing about ball and claw feet is that they are 3 dimensional, unlike the leaf carvings which are low relief. It takes a leap of faith to start cutting off everything that doesn't look like a ball and claw for the first time. Might want to practice on a spare leg for the first one...naaah! Go for it.
I make patterns for both top and side views of the leg. Cut the leg to the patterns. Then draw a center line down the top of the foot. The middle toe is drawn freehand using this as a guide. Draw the outside toes on the side of the foot, using a cardboard template made from your fullsize drawing (you did make a drawing I hope). Draw the shape of the bottom of the ball on the flat bottom of the foot-depending on your foot pattern, it will likely work out to be not exactly a circle but more of an egg shape, with the tapered end at the back, under the ankle. I make a cardboard template for this too. If you "connect the dots" of the tips of the claws to a centerline of the bottom of the foot, it will make a cross right at the fattest part of the egg for a Philadelphia foot, maybe just behind there for a rat's claw or Massachusetts style ball and claw.I've seen old piecrust tables where the side toes were obviously drawn in freehand, and in a hurry, too. They look funny if one is riding higher on the ball than the other.
I use a v-parting tool to delineate the shape of the toes, the bottom of the vee will be where the toe is tangent to the ball. Leaving the toes in the rough, I then hog off the waste from the ball, using a shallow sweep gouge, and ending up with a very shallow sweep fishtail with the hollow face down. Look at the ball from all angles and try to get it so the line of its curved surface carries across the blanked out toes. A fair curve in other words. If one segment of the ball is higher on one side of the toe, shave it down til it looks right. Don't worry about delineating the web between the toes just yet, but using a deeper gouge, run the furrows up between the toes, enough to tell where they are. You might want to consider taking all three legs to this stage, for consistancy. Or not.
Then I come back and start shaping the toes. I work from the big knuckle down to the claw, and then back from the knuckle toward the ankle. Round things over first, so they look like tootsie rolls, then start shaving the toes down between the knuckles, and undercutting the toes just enough to show they aren't growing out of the ball. I use a skew chisel mostly, to do this. As you get the toes shaped up, you can set in the webbing between the big knuckles, and carve the ball up to the web line. Pick a gouge whose sweep is a pleasing curve for the space you have here, and just cut straight down into the ball, then carve the ball away, up to the line. Use a gouge to refine the furrow between the toes, gradually ending it at the ankle. Round the ankle over so it is circular or oval in section (depends on your leg pattern which shape), and blend it into the foot so it is a fair shape. The ball is minimal back there, your vee chisel will be able to part it away from the ankle, then use the fishtail or a skew to refine the shape and undercut the ankle. Add detail to the talons, like a little bit of cuticle under that last knuckle, and you're done. Easy!
http://www.davidraypine.com/portfolio.php?spgmGal=Tables&spgmPic=14&spgmFilters=#pic
The hard part is making the other two look like the first one...
Good luck,
Ray
thanks for your help in descriptions. If you scroll up in this post you will see about where I am in the carving the leg process. I've attached a couple of pictures.
Currently I'm stuck making the ball round with out taking too much off. It's hard but not impossible to put the wood back.
I've made drawings and templates for the ball and claw.
Currently I've sketched the ball on three faces of the ball trying to make it round. The top, sides and bottom. If I'm correct I remove all the pieces from all three sides to get the ball round?? This is where the leap of faith comes I guess. And where I am stuck. I'll post another picture of where I currently am. Possible help understand where I am. Sorry the picture are so big in the post. I have not figured that out yet.
Chris.
snapper,
It looks like you are a little tentative in cutting in around the side toes. I cut them in pretty much from the side, then work down from the top around the first knuckle. At this point, you will hopefully start to see the thing in three dimensions- it's a paradigm shift for me, to start out "seeing" the foot only from the top and sides as the separate templates are laid on it, then change my way of thinking to seeing the foot as a solid, once the ball starts to shape up. That's the leap I have to take. Once you round the ball over between the top and side toes, and down to the line on the bottom at the front of the foot, and round it up from the bottom on the side to the underside of the side toes, it is usually apparent where you need to shave off the high spots and bumps. or if the toes need to be chopped in deeper, etc.
The shape of the ball itself will vary with the shape of the leg template (the height of the center toe), the spacing of the toes, and the severity of the curl of the side toes. It might be nearly spherical, or more elongated or egg shaped. I've read a description of the best Phila feet as looking as though the toes were squashing a tomato, rather than grasping a pearl. Just as the ball of the typical teatable shaft isn't truly spherical, but flattened top to bottom, so too are the balls on the feet of many of the old tables.
Ray
Chris,
Carving ball and claw feet is the only aspect of my carving that I'm satisfied with, yet describing the process is difficult. The standard answer of cutting away everything that doesn't look like a ball and claw foot, while poor, is an accurate reply.
I find that looking at my own hands grasping a ball, helps to visualize the finished toes. Also, in contrast to everything I've read, I do each leg all the way through; as opposed to doing each major step on all three legs, and then moving on to the next. By completing one foot, I can then use that to make the others. Using calipers and dividers ( to transfer dimensions) and your eye, you can easily make the remaining feet to match. It also seems to make the process go faster, because you may be taking time with some cuts, only to find that more shaping is required; making your earlier cuts a wasted effort.
My best advise is to make one foot in pine or some other cheap easy to work wood and work out the details there, before committing to your real feet.
The link below is to my attempt to describe the carving process.
http://americanfederalperiod.com/COF%20P4.htm
Rob Millard
Edited 7/31/2006 3:18 pm ET by RMillard
Spend $10 on some polymer clay. Lots of carving books recommend this for designing a 3D carving, but no reason it wouldn't work to have a first go where you can fix mistakes.
dave
There was a FWW article about 4-5 years ago on making an Oval chippendale stool, that was about the best step, by step instruction on how to care the ball and claw. I beliee the piece was on the cover. The most recent FWW also has a briefer piece on it as paer of a chair article. I just started doing it from the article and it was very systematic and seemingly less complicated than some of the descriptions above. The main point was to make a cylinder and then reduce the cylinder to a sphere by carving from the equator of the ball to the smaller diameter drawn on the bottom of the ball. The more recent article shows talons which are not undercut and therefore appear to be stuck on the ball rather than grasping it. The earlier article was better in it's detail. Good luck.
Jay S.
That's what I would do too, but then I have more confidence than talent.
The clay idea was for someone who seemed a bit shy of putting wood to the knife without practice. I am about to give it a go with the kids because they get tired before they get to where they can see how much they have achieved.
David
The current issue of FWW, with the Ball & Claw article, was the inspiration for finally starting to carve one. This one is "practice" for a couple of pieces that I would like to make later this year, so I am carving it out of bass wood. I found the instructions in the current-issue article useful, but incomplete. Lonnie Bird's book on making period furniture parts has better and more complete information. As many others have said, it's really not that hard (I'm not a very accomplished carver by any stretch of the imagination)....so far, it's turned out reasonably well. When it is done, I intend to take a couple of photos, post them here, and solicit comments on where I could make the next one better.
If you're not so sure you're ready to carve one of these, all I can recommend is that you just jump in and do it.Tschüß!
Mit freundlichen holzbearbeitungischen Grüßen!
James
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