I’ve need to carve 14 corbells to fit around my windows. Originally I’d planned on buying them from Enkenboll but the cost was astonishing and they wouldn’t accomodate my request to use the wood I provided..
Since they use a fancy duplicarver to carve twenty pieces at a time I see nothing wrong with buying a small duplicarver and making my own..
Does anybody have any experiance with duplicarvers? any brand out there better than another? It seems rather straight forward or am I being hopelessly optomistict (as ususal)
Are there things I should know before sending off my cash?
Replies
Ah, duplicarvers...
Most of the units work pretty well, where they all fall short is in the indexing and piece holding.
If your going to be using a fixed pattern and your blanks will not need to be moved during the carving process they will work pretty well. There is a bit of a learning curve but it isn't bad, the one made by Terrco is one of the cheaper ones and works fine.
Where they really fall short is when you have to move the pattern. If they don't move pefectly in relation to each other you can end up with some odd results.
I know this because I make gunstocks using a modified Terrco machine and a large older two spindle carver that is quite massive.
Michael
Doing flat work isn't too bad. The full 3-D stuff takes a lot more time and can be pretty rough; lots of hand work afterwards. You may want to rough out the blanks on a bandsaw. It isn't quite as easy as the demonstrations at the woodworking shows. There are a few sets of plans available for building your own. Not a bad idea in some respects. You get a heavier unit than the cheaper commercial ones. Takes extra time though.
If you can make or get a pattern, it may be cheaper to have somebody do it for you custom rather than buy a duplicarver. Depends on how long they take to carve.
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