One Man's Woodcraft: Carving.

At first glance there may not be much of a change since Part 5 but there is – quite a few cubic centimetres cut from around the face, taking it a bit closer to where it's meant to be.

Also I've fixed a problem. The thing sits on the lathe bed, clamped from the underneath with a wing nut and has a couple of strips of rubbery mesh between, at the edges, to stop it slipping. Eventually I thought to think about why I was having to tighten it down so hard . . . Yes, you've got it! The underside had a slight hump running top/bottom, due to distortion while drying, so that it rocked slightly and the rubbery stuff wasn't getting a good grip. I took a plane to it and removed (much of) the hump and now just snugging down the clamp holds it firmly enough for almost all my cuts. Of course, having sorted out the underside, I couldn't resist having a go at the topside (wonder how long will it stay fresh and beautiful?), thus giving me the idea for the other changes . . .

Another change is that there is now a border around the whole block, 1/2inch-ish wide (about half the width of that roll of masking tape) and marked more clearly, this time, in nominal 25mm steps (mostly, they're quite close to that). The corners are all marked 1 (no, not 0) for 6 of the 8 ends of those scales – the 4 horizontals and the bottoms of the 2 vertical ones.

The vertical scales run from 1 at the bottom to 15 at the top while the horizontals (both top and bottom) go from 1 at the edges to 7 in the middle (actually, halfway across the bottom is about 1¾mm past each '7' but that won't be of concern for a while, if at all. In addition, the bottom horizontal scales are lined with colour – Red for Right (His right of course!) and bLue for Left.

This means that I can measure the depth (using the wood-stick-with-steel-bar gauge) at pretty much any point and check it at the other side using conventional graph coordinates (x,y), so that: Red 4,7 would be accroX 4, uppY 7 and the depth say 13mm. Slide the gauge over to Blue 4,7 (His other cheekbone) and check. 1mm difference? At this stage, not a problem. 2mm? Hmm, 3? maybe take a bit off the shallow side.

The Red and bLue specification is spurious, of course, as you'll know which side you started at – unless you want to make a list, eg R4,6.5: +2 / R4,7: +3 / R4,7.5 +3.5 . .

For the moment, a mm or two here or there isn't important – it may become a bit more so later but then again maybe not – I'm not looking for perfect symmetry, just close enough so that (as for most of us, I suppose) the eye doesn't notice.

Articles by Rod

02.12.13 Front Page

Back Issue Page