First Attempt

[watersnake]

My first attempt advice and criticism welcomed

Ron

[terrymac]

If you are serious about learning this type of tooling, you need to get q copy of the "Sheridan Style Carving" book written by Clinton Fey and Bob Likewise, and study, study, study. It will become real obvious of what you are doing and how it is to be done. I have got to get another copy, have used it so much, the pages are falling out.

Hope this helps,

Terry

[Bob Blea]

Hello Ron,

I see a couple of things that could help you out. Getting confortable with your swivel knife and your beveler will help a lot. The swivel knife is really a hard tool to master and it really does take a lot of practice, so don't feel bad about your efforts here at all. It looks like most of your cuts were not very smooth and flowing. In all styles of floral carving you want smooth lines and gentle curves. You have many places where the curves don't flow or have flat spots, and it breaks up the flow of the carving. Practice will help with that, and having a really sharp knife is very important too. The pros will regularly say they practice every day with the knife. The swivel knife is the ground work for good carving of any kind, so regular practice with it will make you better. Try practicing doing gentle curves or decorative cuts of scrap leather, and try doing a little every day.

Beveling is the next basic tool skill and really can be just as hard to get a good result. I still have trouble with uneven beveling when using checkered bevelers, and for some reason I have never been very fast when beveling with them, where my wife can bevel like a pro and probably spends about half the time I do beveling something. Again, its a skill that takes a lot of practice, so maybe try beveling some of those gentle cuts with the knife and make them equally smooth. Also, it looks like your leather may be too wet when you are working it. That will make it hard to bevel properly and you won't get any of the nice burnishing when you do. It looks mushy around the beveled areas which makes me think it's too wet. There is a pinned topic on casing in the How Do I Do That forum that can help, but basic rule of thumb is that the leather should look almost dry on the surface before you start carving.

And yes, if you can get a copy of Sheridan Style Carving that book will help you tremendously.

Hope this helps. Keep it up, you have potential.

Bob

[Chavez]

For swivel knife practice:

One of the tricks I picked up on this forum was to melt some wax in a frying pan and do some practice cuts in the wax. Once you run out of space you can melt the wax again and get a fresh canvas to practice on. This will help you get used to your knife and to cutting curves & turning the barrell with you fingers. Not as good practice as carving leather but much better than nothing!