THE HEADPIECE OUTLINE.
On Saturday I started working on the headpiece. After I had transfered the template to the face veneer, I trimmed the waste of with a coping saw and planed the way to the final dimension with a low angle block plane.
After that it was time to cut the crest of the head in the Torres style. Again here, I started out cutting the waste with the coping saw and after that I went about getting it down with various files in a random manner. I took forever to do and I got a bit lost. I also got some chipping here and there that luckily was repairable. What seemed to be an easy task didn't turn out to be so after all. In the end I gave up on the files and switched to a chisel and was able slowly to pare my way back to final dimension and finish it off with a scraper to a satisfactory result. I must admit I found the chisel much easier to control that the files.
On Saturday I started working on the headpiece. After I had transfered the template to the face veneer, I trimmed the waste of with a coping saw and planed the way to the final dimension with a low angle block plane.
After that it was time to cut the crest of the head in the Torres style. Again here, I started out cutting the waste with the coping saw and after that I went about getting it down with various files in a random manner. I took forever to do and I got a bit lost. I also got some chipping here and there that luckily was repairable. What seemed to be an easy task didn't turn out to be so after all. In the end I gave up on the files and switched to a chisel and was able slowly to pare my way back to final dimension and finish it off with a scraper to a satisfactory result. I must admit I found the chisel much easier to control that the files.
ROUGH CUTTING THE HEAD PIECE
TRUING THE EDGE
THE FINISHED CREST
THE FINISHED CREST
THE FINISHED CREST
THE FINISHED CREST
An observation,
The Torres head crest design is a rather simple one and one should think that carving it out also should be rather simple. However, I found the big graceful curves quite difficult to achieve. They continued to look a bit skewed, flatter on one side that the other, etc. I made me wonder if a more complicated design in fact would be easier to carve because it would have many more reference points to aim for.
I hindsight I think I should have gone about the business by cutting it out in facetted steps to control symmetry and form better.
The lesson I took from this is that one should never underestimate something that appears to be a simple task. Not that cutting the crest out is necessary is a difficult one, but if you don't pay attention to what you are doing you can very easily loose track. It is a little bit like the first time got your driving license. You drove around very carefully the first couple of days slowly gaining your confidence and then thinking: This is not really that hard, letting your guard down only to have your first accident or near miss.
This time was luckily just a near miss for me.
The Torres head crest design is a rather simple one and one should think that carving it out also should be rather simple. However, I found the big graceful curves quite difficult to achieve. They continued to look a bit skewed, flatter on one side that the other, etc. I made me wonder if a more complicated design in fact would be easier to carve because it would have many more reference points to aim for.
I hindsight I think I should have gone about the business by cutting it out in facetted steps to control symmetry and form better.
The lesson I took from this is that one should never underestimate something that appears to be a simple task. Not that cutting the crest out is necessary is a difficult one, but if you don't pay attention to what you are doing you can very easily loose track. It is a little bit like the first time got your driving license. You drove around very carefully the first couple of days slowly gaining your confidence and then thinking: This is not really that hard, letting your guard down only to have your first accident or near miss.
This time was luckily just a near miss for me.
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