DIMENSIONING WOOD AND TRANSFERRING THE TRACING TO A BLANK

After you have completed the tracing for your carving, the next step is to dimension the wood that you will use to make your carving blank. I usually pay attention to the thinner dimension such as the thickness and cut a billet a little wider than I need on my band saw or table saw. Again, this can be done with less expensive hand tools or you can get billets pre-cut that will be close to the dimensions of your carving.

The next step involves setting the tracing that you made for the thinner of the dimensions on the edge of the billet to get an idea of how much you need to take off in order to get the stock to the right width. As you can see in the picture below, the billet needs to be narrowed slightly.

In order to do this I run the billet through the thickness sander.

Now the billet is the right width...

As you can see in the below picture, the billet is more than wide enough the other way to accommodate the size of our carving.

The next step is to transfer the tracing to the wood. With a very sharp pencil, draw around the outside edge of your tracing.

Then draw the inside details so that you have a guide that will help you get proportions right while doing the actual carving. Position the tracing to the side of the traced outline. Then draw horizontal lines across the wood to help you guide where important breaks should be such as the bottom of the figures chin, underside of the figures arm etc. Then sketch in the rest using your guide lines.

Now your tracing is transferred!

Last Page     Next Page