Hi Jerry
Could you provide a little insight on how you learned to create your work. Were there any books or videos that you used to gain the skills? Did you have a mentor. I am interested in trying out this at some point. Thanks.
-Steve
Anyone who says that good chisel and wood skills can "simply be picked up in a weekend" is lying. All good woodworking skills take time and PATIENCE to learn... BUT anyone can gain these skills with time and again, patience.
There are only a few basic rules to chisel carving.
You can learn the rules in any book on the subject. It is not rocket science.
but training your hands the techniques "and feel" to do the work takes time.
Then there is equipment. To do this kind of detail on a rifle, You will need the smallest "Professional" chisel set possible (1mm heads) $150
and you will need a magnifying helmet with a light and multiple powered lenses $50
and a 7000 grit whet stone. $50
But you should start out with a standard SIZE "professional" set of chisels and practice, practice, practice, on some hardwoods doing much larger but similar designs until they look GREAT and you are board doing them.
I did such work on furniture like rockers and my kitchen table off and on for over 20 years.
Once you are confident with the big work, then you get the tiny tools and the magnification helmet and do the same thing in miniature on scrap hardwood until you are confident with that too. Then you do it again on curved hardwood.
Then you get a rifle and GO FOR IT!
