The anxiety stage...

[Hatman/2nd line]

Very nice, subdued and elegant!! I can only wish.

 

[2 shots]

 

[IanH]

Very nice, subdued and elegant!! I can only wish.

Thanks! This is my first try at carving a longrifle, didn't practice much beforehand. That is to say it isn't brain surgery. If I can do it, anyone can.

 

[Coldfingers]

Very nice! I like the simple design by the patch box.

Going to do a similar design on mine, just with wire.

 

[TDM]

Your doing a great job @IanH. It probably wouldn’t pass muster on the ALR forum, Lord knows they beat my work up there! But for mere mortals like us yours is very nice.

 

[IanH]

Your doing a great job @IanH. It probably wouldn’t pass muster on the ALR forum, Lord knows they beat my work up there! But for mere mortals like us yours is very nice.

Like I wrote earlier, it's good enough for who it's for, I wasn't trying to execute carving like on an English gentleman's fowling piece. If the purists don't like it, no skin off my nose. Everyone seems so dreadfully afraid to carve on their longrifles and really they shouldn't be. "But I'll screw it up!" Yeah, probably. You'll probably screw up the first three. So what, how are you going to get better? A few master carvers heckling you on the internet going to keep you from working toward what you want? Like Mike Brooks recently posted, "take a carving class". Great advice if you want to do detailed, quality work. I think it's 90% good design/layout, 5% technique (knowing what tools to use and how/when to use them), and 5% skill in the execution that makes for good carving and I expect you'd learn all that in a well-guided class.

I titled this thread "the anxiety stage" because that's what it is when you either get the stock worked down to the final shape or you open the Kibler box and all that work is done for you, there it sits and seems to say "Don't screw me up!" Then you take a vee-gouge to it or start stabbing in lines. that's when you figure out it isn't that hard, just like when you finally suck it up and start sinking the barrel in your first plank build. If you let fear of screwing up stop you, you'll never accomplish anything. It's just wood and metal guys.

 

[IanH]

Very nice! I like the simple design by the patch box.

Going to do a similar design on mine, just with wire.

Please do post some photos when you do! I really like a good silver wire inlay as an accent to carving or in place of incised carving.

 

[billraby]

Carving around the tang looks good. To take it to the next level you need to sculpt it a bit instead of leaving it flat on top.

 

[K.G.]

Beautiful work - I've been whittling and taking up the sketchbook again and recently ordered a book on metal engraving for some study. Hoping I can meld the skills together to make something beautiful like this

 

[gibby]

Really nice work. Looks like you have quality tools and that has to inspire additional confidence.

 

[IanH]

Really nice work. Looks like you have quality tools and that has to inspire additional confidence.

I used a vee gouge and skew chisel from a $30 Chinese chip carving set, a $10 1/2" straight chisel from Lowes, and a pocketknife. The trick is that they are sharp. Really, really sharp. I have more money in stones and strops than in all the edged hand tools I use for gunbuilding.

 

[bassncrap]

Excellent clean work!!

 

[IanH]

The moulding here gave me a little trouble but I was able to straighten out a few squiggles and slips with files. I should have made one of those moulding planes what rides in the rammer channel but too lazy. Will definitely do that on the fancy maple gun rather than risk relieving the chippy, undulating grain with a flat chisel.

 

[IanH]

Finished the patch box and put on the first coat of oil.

 

[Pete G]

I am glad to see that you used the brass end on the patch box. So many leave it off and to me it just looks unfinished.

 

[Col. Batguano]

Executing symmetrical carving is very difficult in not making one side just. little bit different than the other. It's a slow process--tweak it, look at it, tweak some more, and even then, it's VERY hard to have both sides come out perfectly symmetrical. Maybe that's why rococo carving became so popular?

 

[Rob M.]

Finished the patch box and put on the first coat of oil.

View attachment 278014

GEESH AND RICE !!!!!! That is frikken beautiful !!!!! WOW !!! :O

 

[IanH]

I don't try that hard for symmetrical, if you get it perfect it just looks like a machine did it to a program.

Speaking of that, I was musing on carving last night and after looking at a bunch again, especially very recent carving, I got to thinking about what makes especially well-done carving. There is well done carving that isn't perfect, but is executed with bold, sure strokes of the tools and gets the pattern right. Then there is well-done carving that was done by someone picking at it for hours under high magnification, and though it may end up being more precise, just doesn't look as good. I like a little bit of imperfection but not gouge slips, chipouts, overruns, and stab-ins that are too deep in places and not relieved correctly .

 

[IanH]

GEESH AND RICE !!!!!! That is frikken beautiful !!!!! WOW !!! :O

Thanks, Bud! just finishing up a near-perfect kit and scratching on it a little, no big deal. I'm done with carving, all I need do do now is finish the brass and get the steel blued up. Yep, I'm gonna hot water blue it, lock, trigger, screws, barrel, rear sight, and all. Not PC but I don't care, it's what I want. My next build will be PC in every way I know how to do it and that means engraved brass patch box, fish ears behind the lock panels, gaudy raised carving, and a lot of other stuff I don't like very much.

 

[Adam in WI]

Forgive the newb question, but is the carving done before or after final sanding?