Recent content by charvercarver

Chris Pye has an excellent online class for around £5 a month, it covers all forms of carving but he is paticularly noted as a letter cutter. His books are good as well. The thing you'll find with carving, including letter cutting, is that you can always find two equally accomplished carvers...

Could you use dowels in opposing angles, like dovetail nailing?

Hi, To make the repair with a new piece of wood you will first have to square off the damaged section to get a useable glueing surface. The simplest way of doing that would be to rout out a groove along the whole piece large enough to take you back past the damaged section. Then glue in a...

What a fantastic project. I understand you haven't even set up the workshop yet, but something to consider for the future is exporting under the fair trade banner. It could be a very sustainable business model that employs a lot of people.

Peter, First off I think it speaks well of yourself and your company that you venture into a thread with very mixed opinions on your work. I think the piece is a well considered design, even if not to my taste in all respects all the elements hang together well. And certain parts are brilliant...

I use a sort of side sharpening technique I got from a Krenov book. You rest the handle in your cupped right hand and press down behind the bevel with your left hand. The chisel (or whatever) pivots in your right hand while you make arcs across the stone with your left.

Just to add, if you're going into carving as well as turning I highly reccomend learning to free hand sharpen. Apparently you can get jigs for the tormek, but considering how often you need to touch up your gouges on a strop anyway I don't think it would prove to be much of a convenience.

I'd second what Woodmonkey said, try sharpening your rip chain. It's a lot cheaper than a bandsaw.

Hi, While they are not the cheapest, I've always found nicks timber in gloucester to have brilliant customer service. Might be worth a try.

I second the scratch stock idea, cheapest easiest way.

It's easy when it's green. By the way I'd suggest scoring around your letters before you cut them, otherwise your outlines might be a bit fuzzy.

I cut this with a Bosch GST and a t119bo blade. The log was chainsawed in half and hand planned. I found that the blade wasn't quite long enough to go the whole way through, but it was easy enough to finish with gouges and chisels. If your letters are larger you could use a thicker longer blade.

DMF: It might be an idea to use a bench grinder before the belt sander, it'd be quicker and there is less chance of burning the metal. Have to say it isn't a bad idea to make your mistakes on a cheap set of gouges, if you're anything like me that V tool might be half the length it is now before...

You're right about needing to do a lot of grinding, the gouge looks like it's for turning rather than carving. I don't know if it is a trick of the light or something, but that V tool looks like it is over 90 degrees wide, generally the most useful angle is about 60 (for lining in, separating...

Just too add I'm assuming you mean you want to terminate your letters like below. If so then the method above will work, but you may have to go back and forth a bit. It's a bit like squaring the ends of a bored through mortice.