Advice on tooling this

[Kustomizer]

OK, I'd like to tool the upper half of this Rat Fink into a pattern, but was wondering how best to do it. There are a lot of small, close details on this pic, like the teeth and the hairs on the edge of the ears and face lines, etc. that I think might be hard for a newbie like myself and was wondering what advice you all might have if I was to try and tackle this.

What I'm thinking about doing is a motorcycle seat and I want to replace the "Sportster '74" with the top half of Rat Fink, this was a practice piece I did to see if I could tool the main pattern, now if I can tackle the Rat Fink part I might use this as my first motorcycle seat pattern, here's my practice piece:

Let me know what you think, any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[bustedlifter]

Kustomizer, make your pattern just using the basic outline. You can add all the little details later. Take your time and maybe do some practice finks on some scrap. Here are some variations on one theme.

Edited December 22, 2008 by bustedlifter

[Kustomizer]

So Busted, it looks like the lines in the face should be just cut in and no tooling, right? Right now when I cut with the swivel knife I have a tendency to cut kind of deep, and looking at some work it looks as though I have to learn to cut at different levels for different parts of a piece and have the tooling not so deep, does this sound right?

Nice work by the way, I remember seeing that on the Jockey Journal or HAMB I believe.

[bustedlifter]

Thanks, man! Yes,a lot of the facial details are just cut in. Too much tooling can make it look muddled, sometimes less is more. As far as depth goes, I like it deep! But then again, you have to pull up sometimes.I'm still learning myself and in no way consider myself an expert. My ideal style would have my work look kind of like a cartoon drawing. I've seen your stuff on the HAMB and JJ and it's looking good.

[Kustomizer]

Thanks and I guess I'll just need to give it a shot and see what happens, thanks for the input. I'll have to think a bit about what needs to be cut and what doesn't.

[TwinOaks]

Something you can do to help with the cut depth is to have a spare swivel knife with a much shallower bevel to the edge. I've got three knives, with different bevels on all of them. For 6-7 + oz, and figure carving where a beveler will be used I like a deeper cut, but on thinner leather a shallower/wider cut seems to work better. (This is not an original idea, I just forgot who posted it first.) By using the shallower cut, you can also get more definition/ heavier "lines" without so much risk of cutting all the way through the piece. Plus, just like with finger cuts, (with lots-o-practice) you can "slide" the blade through a curve, opening it up a little more.

[bustedlifter]

Something you can do to help with the cut depth is to have a spare swivel knife with a much shallower bevel to the edge. I've got three knives, with different bevels on all of them. For 6-7 + oz, and figure carving where a beveler will be used I like a deeper cut, but on thinner leather a shallower/wider cut seems to work better. (This is not an original idea, I just forgot who posted it first.) By using the shallower cut, you can also get more definition/ heavier "lines" without so much risk of cutting all the way through the piece. Plus, just like with finger cuts, (with lots-o-practice) you can "slide" the blade through a curve, opening it up a little more.

That's a good idea,I'll have to try that. Thanks for the tip!

[Kustomizer]

Thanks TwinOaks!