Previous Tool / Carving Tips
Updated 4/5/98
All tool tips are subject to copyright laws, and may only be used with authorization from PJL Enterprises or the original author.
1997:
May Tool Tip: Its about burner cords, and how to keep
them from being a "drag".
June Tool
Tip: Some tips on transferring
your design to wood.
July Tool Tip: This
months tip is on collet and bit care.
September
Tool Tip: Some alternative ways to clean your burning
tips.
November
Tool Tip: A
"Sticky" Situation, and how to avoid it.
December Tool Tip: A
computer few pointers.
1998
March Tool Tip: How
to use the number "13" pen tip to make fish scales.
This month's tip is about burner cords, and how to keep them from being a "drag".
Because our pens are so light weight to begin with, even our superflex cord can seem like a "dog's tail" that your having to "drag" around with the pen whilst burning. To remedy this problem, I suggest that you first find a fairly small rubber band. Next, on the end of the cord that attaches to the pen, fold the cord over onto itself once. Use the rubber band to secure the cord, so it stays folded over onto itself.
Now when using your pen, just have the cord go between your thumb and trigger finger so it rests in your palm. You'll be amazed how your cord creates no "drag" now. Some people even use an armband to have the cord follow their forearm, so that the cord is totally out of the way.
Originally told to me by Laurie Gmyrek and Steven Chlupsa.
This month's tip is about relief carving, and an easy way to do lettering. Also some tips on going about transfering it to your wood.
For anybody who has the need to do some lettering, to eliminate the chore of setting it out. May I suggest a visit to this site and pick up a shareware copy of an easy to use program called poster, that takes all the hard work out of it. Poster Software (http://users.aol.com/PosterSW/)
This little jewel was submitted to Bill Judt's woodcarving list (http://wwwoodcarver.com/WWWList/WWWList.html) by a Malcolm Chorley I believe, and talked about by many others.
Another subject that kind of goes along with this, is transferring a pattern to a block of wood. This too has been discussed at length on the previously mentioned list server. Various techniques can be used, from using plain carbon paper and tracing your design, to laser printing or photo copying a "reversed" image and ironing it onto your wood.
If you own an ink-jet printer, you can do the same thing as you would with a laser printer, except that you print it on acetate transparency film and immediately press it to the block of wood using a roller or squeegee, (ink-jet ink doesn't dry very fast on regular transparency film). The acetate can be cleaned with a wet cloth, towel dried, and reused many times. This is something I developed for my mom's arts & craft business, works great for intricate paterns and curved surfaces. When doing a "production run", I can usually get each print impression to transfer twice; although the second one may be a bit light.
As with anything you haven't tried before, use a scrap piece of wood to test with first, it also helps if the surface of the wood is fairly smooth.
This months tip is on collet and bit care, submitted by Laurie Lundell (Gmyrek)
Ever bent your favorite bit trying to get it out of the collet, or just hate the hassle of trying to get a stuck bit out of a collet? You might be thinking, "just unlock the collet, and push the bit in further if possible". That will work, but you might damage your bit if your not careful. The real cause is that the insides of your collet(s) have wood resin build up, which causes the collet to kind of glue itself to the bit.
To clean (for example an Optima 2 hand piece) your collet set, you can use a few items usually found around the house. Soaking the collets (and collet cap) in plain finger nail polish remover or rubbing alcohol (oven cleaner will work too, but keep it off of any aluminum parts) will quickly remove any resins. The parts of the hand piece shaft that the collet(s) have contact with should be cleaned with the same thing, using a damp (not dripping wet) cotton swab. DO NOT get any of the cleaning solution on any bearing, as it may penetrate and damage it which will lead to premature bearing failure. Finish by drying the collets and other parts (use a thin wire to thread a thin piece of yarn through the collet holes for drying, do not force it through), and then giving them a thin coat of light oil (like WD-40), and wipe clean again with a cloth or Q-tip. Again, DO NOT get any of the light oil on the bearings.
If you have very humid conditions like Minnesota does, another cause of stuck bits is plain old rust. On bits that have already succumb to the ravages of moisture and are rusted...Spray with WD-40 or oven cleaner in a cup and let them soak...then take a wire brush to them and/or steel wool to the shank, wipe clean, spray again, then wipe clean...voila......like new! It's a good idea to spray all of your bits with a little WD-40 from time to time to prevent rust in the first place.
I have never been one burn light when using my burning pens. I am also too lazy or too busy to constantly buff off carbon build up when using them (I usually use them to "score" plastic). This of course leads to heavy carbon build up on my tips, to the point that it can't be easily buffed off. I am also aware that heavily buffing a tip can cause the metal on the side of the tip to "roll over" the sharpened edge. Which would mean I'd have to then resharpen my pen tip to burn a decent line, which of course will lead to a shorter tip life, etc, etc....
If you too have these bad habits, don't reach for the sandpaper just yet... Their is an amazingly simple and inexpensive solution to this problem. You probably already have this product somewhere in your house. Go look on your shelves, or under the sink for that can of oven cleaner. Yes, oven cleaner!
Be mindful to read your oven cleaner directions, as it may be harmful to certain metals (not to mention yourself). The nichrome tip itself should not be a problem, but the the brass tubes and silver solder that is connected to the nichrome tip may not like certain oven cleaners. If so, just be careful not to let the oven cleaning foam or gel touch the silver solder or brass parts of the pen.
I myself like to use "Diablo Carbon Kleen", which is safe for all metals (but still pretty toxic). This stuff is a gel like substance that comes in a can. You'll have to go to a restraunt supply store to find it though. An overnight soak, then wiped clean, followed by another two hour soak usually gets 90% of the carbon off of my once heavily carboned tips. At that point I can usually buff off the remaining carbon build up with ease.
You may have to experiment with your particular oven cleaner to see what the optimum soak time(s) will be, and whether you'll need to do it more than once or twice.
This month's tip was submitted by Laurie Gmyrek. Laurie is an accomplished wood carving artist who also does stained glass. Visit her web site to see some of her past and present works.
A "Sticky" Situation
In competition, we are subject to stickers being
placed on our carvings, for identification purposes. This year I
have a piece that has been damaged by a sticker, twice. The
damage did not occur until the sticker was removed. When this was
done, the finish, the paint and the gesso under-coating, came off
with the sticker, leaving only the deft-sealed wood behind.
The repair of this seems simple enough, but just painting the
damage does not fill in the thickness of the surface that was
removed. Try as I may, the color was right, but from the side, in
the right light, the slight depression can be seen. The only way
to rectify this would be to start from scratch by removing the
surface treatment completely and starting over with a new finish.
Unfortunately this is not always possible, and a real pain in the
neck!
Until the competitions use stickers, which are "surface
friendly", this kind of damage along with adhesive being
left behind, can occur. My tip for this month would be to use a
hairdryer to heat the sticker and it’s adhesive, prior to
trying to remove the sticker. This seems to solve the problem,
but you need to remember to do this, prior to attempting to
remove the sticker.
Hopefully this tip can keep someone else from having to deal with
a "sticky" situation.
Laurie J. Lundell Gmyrek
This month I thought I'd would give a computer few pointers. Yes, I know it really has nothing to do with carving or carving tools "directly", but you are using your computer to view this (aren't you?).
Arghhh! My internet connection is too slow!
A few months back I purchased a brand new 33.6 Cardinal modem. To my disgust, it didn't seem that much faster than my old modem (a zoomview 14.4bps). After much internet searching, I came across a web sight called Windows 95 Annoyances which was very informative on what the "real" problem was (it has many other windows95 fixes too). Windows 95, by default, is optimized to run on a LAN or Ethernet like connection, which have considerably higher bandwidth compared to a 33.6 modem. There is a setting in the Registry file called "MAXMTU", which is set to 1500 by default. This high of setting can cause a router (between you and the site your looking at) to "hang", or send IP packets out of sequence. At any rate I edited my registry file, and gained at least a 100% speed up when downloading a web site or file. Of course most people are not technically inclined enough to even think about rooting around the registry file, so an easier (and just as effective) way to fix this is to get a FREE program called "Mtuspeed" at the MTU-Speed Home Page. Like anything else, remember to read the program directions first.
Drat! My friend is online again, so I can't call him/her!
To see if a friend or relative is currently online, get a program called ICQ (Sounds like: I seek you) from Mirabilis. Of course the person your looking for must also have this program, have it running whilst online, and be in "online" mode to be seen. ICQ not only lets you know if a given person is online, but will also let you start up a chat window with them (more than 2 can be in a chat session). You can even use it to run 3rd party communications programs like Microsoft NetMeeting, send URLs, send or receive files, send and receive quick messages, and much much more.
Help for the carvers web site (with large photos).
You'd like to set up a web site to show off your carvings and you have all the equipment you need, but you don't have a clue when it comes to html coding. Neither did I for the most part. For about $150.00 (or less) you can get Frontpage98, which is pretty much like working with a work processor (no knowledge of html is necessary). This entire web site was made using Frontpage97, and required very little manual coding of html code. I hear that FP98 is even better than FP97.
When designing your web site, you can get some ideas by looking at how other people have done theirs (go to my links page for some good examples). Some design cavets that should be followed: 1. DO NOT to have pages buried more than five layers deep from the initial start page of your site (makes it hard for people to navigate your site). 2. If using frame sets, remember to also have your site links (and email link) somewhere on each page (in case the person's browser doesn't support frame sets). 3. PLEASE pick a text color and background color or bitmap image that does not cause blindness (yellow text on a cyan background comes to mind ;-) 4. Have a few people you know (with different screen resolutions and different browser software) test out the "veiwability" of your site, as it may look totally different from what you see on your screen...
Looking at web sites with photos of carvings is getting to be a hobby with me ;-) The one thing that can really distract a person viewing a site are BIG JPEG files that seem to take forever to download. A neat little program, called Cyberview, can help cut the fat out of your large JPEG files. Remember to always save your JPEG files at 100% quality before using Cyberview, in the same "size" (height & width) as you want them to display on the browser, and that 96 dpi (dots per inch) is sufficient for most people. (640x480 screen resolution is equal to 72 dpi, 800x600 = 96dpi.)
Another thing to consider is how you scanned a photo of a carving to begin with. A wealth of general information about scanning techniques can be found at Wayne's Scanner Page.
Another tip (I don't remember if Wayne mentions it) is to never save your newly scanned file as a JPEG file. Why?!? The JPEG file format should only be used after ALL of your editing is completely done. I use the compressed TIFF format, then save the final edited version as a JPEG. For example: If you open a previously saved JPEG file, and then run an "unsharp-mask" (sharpening) function on it, it may get blocky and somewhat pixilated (sharpening a JPEG file has a tendency to make "defects" in the compression process show up). In fact; if you open, edit, and save to a JPEG file several times, the image quality will noticeably degrade.
GIF vs. JPEG: Using the wrong file format can cause a given image to be too large and/or look bad. A general rule of thumb to follow is: JPEG format should be used for 24bit photographic files only. It is not very good at compressing computer generated vector graphics (like text or icons). The GIF format is best suited for computer generated graphics and text. You can use GIF for small "thumbnail" photos, but they will have to be in an eight bit format (256 colors), and photos are smallest with a "diffusion screen dither".
Whew! I hope these tips will help out you wanna-be webmasters in getting that perfect carving site, up and running.
This month I'll be showing the technique of how to use the number "13" pen tip to make fish scales. This technique was originally shown to me by Scott Clinton at last years Northern Nationals in Bloomington, MN. I believe that Scott is the originator of this technique, and teaches it to his students.
Step 1, the scale.
As shown here to the left, you
make each individual scale by holding the pen's flat surface to
the wood and making a crescent however wide you need it to be.
Keep the pen tip orientated the same throughout the stroke. Use
the pen's heat and shape to depress the wood more in the middle
third of the stroke, and depress a bit lighter on the ends.
Step 2, the second scale..
Make another like the first
one, starting at about a bit more than a third to a half of a
scale width over from the first one.
Step 3, the third and final scale...
The "joining scale"
is made pretty much like your first two, and should connect
approximately* 1/3 from the end of each of the two scales it is
connected to. Voila, you've just learned the three basic steps to
fish-scale carving using our number 13 pen tip.
Some Additional Notes.
Obviously not every scale on a fish is going to be the same size, as you will need to have smaller ones near the belly, gills, and tail fins among other places. The beauty of this technique is that you can rapidly change scale sizes, and can be done in reverse of what I've shown here (start with bottom scale, then make the other two on top, etc...). Another advantage of this tip and technique is quite evident when doing the inside of a curved fish body (hard, if not impossible, to do with most other types of scaling tips). Remember, this "basic" technique is not set in stone, and can be strayed from somewhat liberally to get the effect that you need (i.e. every scale should not meet "exactly" 1/3 from the edge of the adjoining scales, as in real life... everything is approximate....)
Many carvers draw out with a pencil where they intend to burn their carvings, this is not necessary or even recommended. Because this is somewhat of a "freeform" way of making fish scales, it is very hard to try and stick to a drawn pattern whilst doing. If you make a mistake while burning, oh well... Fish don't have perfect scales anyways, and you can easily cover up an occasional mistake by making it look like a scar or "mutant" scale.
This pen tip is available in three sizes: Small, Medium, and Large. The small one is good for doing miniatures, trout scales, or if you prefer it to the medium size for doing the smaller scales on your carving. The Medium sized tip is the most versatile, and can be used to do all of the scales on most life sized fish carvings. The Large sized tip is good for when your working on big carvings or scales, and can do most of the same work the Medium is capable of (really small scales are nearly impossible though). The size of tip you choose primarily depends on the size of your work, and your personal preferences.
This pen is offered in both standard and heavy duty styles, but I recommend getting it in the heavy duty style along with a heavy duty cord too. This pen began life for use in flat work pyrography, and is slightly different from the original in that the tip does not come to a "sharp" point. Instead, its tip is "very slightly" rounded at the point, so that it doesn't gouge when you are in the middle of the scale stroke.