Straight wide lines

[Kovac]

Hi there, 

this might be a dumb question , but how do you widen a line you carved? Im trying to carve embroidery patterns like pic related. I tried to widen them with my stylus but they're stil too thin and it looks bad. Or is it best to do a double line, but that might get messy.

 

Cheers

[Northmount]

A couple ideas to try.

Take a beveler the width you want the line to be, line it up against a straight edge and drag it along the leather several times until you get the depth or burnish you want.  (Assuming no swivel knife cuts)

Make up a simple tool like used to press the spline into window screen frames.  Use a washer the width you want the line to be.  Run it along a straight edge on your leather.

Have you figured out a tool for the rest of the design?  Make up a couple stamps to use sort of like basket weave stamps. Use a SS bolt.  Looks like a couple circles filed in the face of the tool would work for this design.

Tom

[Treed]

I will try to describe what I would do with this pattern. Tandy sells a book and it is probably free in digital on there web site called inverted carving. Draw out the pattern and them make your knife cuts along the lines at the width that you want. Instead of beveling down the out side of the line, bevel to the inside towards the center of area. After the beveling is done go back with a small backgrounding tool and background between the lines. You can make a line any width that you want. 

[Kovac]

Thank you both, i'm gonna look into inverted carving, seems like i'll get the best results. 

Also, yeah, I've been thinking of making some of the stamps on my own (like the middle squares) from bolts i have.