Part I

put in a backing of light green paper, and hung them up with knots of green ribbon. The effect was very pretty. But the weather was hot, and in three or four days I saw with horror an ugly, suspicious mark on the ribbon of the nearest, and on looking closer I saw that half the ribbon was saturated with oil, and oil had also soaked into the green backing. I quickly took down both frames ; the photos fortunately were uninjured, but I found that I had put on three times too much oil, and had gone near to ruin photographs that could not have been replaced. So take care not to use too much oil. In general I prefer to use yellow beeswax : I slightly warm it, rub it on a brush, and apply it to my work, warming the work also. It darkens the walnut nicely, not too much, and takes a high polish with continued rubbing. But to pure beeswax I prefer the AND WOOD CARVING. 31 wax melted up with a little turpentine ; this rubs on more easily, darkens the wood more, and polishes beautifully. White woods must be stained, unless they are sufficiently white to look well when simply varnished. The best stains are oak and walnut stain, without oil, particularly that rich brown stain used by the Swiss carvers. The former can be purchased at most oil and colour-shops, and the Swiss brown stain can be had of Loretz, at his Swiss warehouse, 6, Bridge Street, Bath. These stains should be put on carefully with a fine camel-hair paint-brash, and a little at a time, so as not to make streaks on the work ; but, before putting it on, it should be tried first on a piece of wood similar to that intended to be stained/ till you get the shade required. When you have got the required colour, a hard bristle brush will polish Loretz's stain nicely. But should you wish to varnish the work that has been fret cut or carved, you must do it with brush-varnish, made with spirits of wine, using, according to the colour of the wood and the effect to be produced, dark hard varnish, pale hard varnish, or white hard varnish. These varnishes must be laid on with a camel-hair brush, as thin and evenly as possible. The first coat will be entirely absorbed by the wood, and if the grain of the wood is raised, it must be rubbed down with some very fine sand-paper, taking care that the absorbed varnish is thoroughly dry before using the sand-paper. Then put on the second coat, and again use sand-paper; if the grain should again be raised, you can then put on a third coat, and even a fourth, if the polish is not high enough. Pour a little of the varnish into an old wine-glass, and dip your brush in this ; don't dip into the bottle, you will waste the varnish, and spoil what is left. Pour back into the bottle any that may remain, and clean 3a A MANUAL OF FRET CUTTING your brash with a little spirits of wine. If by any chance you should forget to clean the brush, or if no spirits of wine be at hand, and the varnish dries on the brash, put it down on your table, hammer the camel-hair slightly, and the varnish will break up into powder, and can be shaken off. The best hard dark varnish is made by dissolving shell- lac in spirits of wine. If you wish to make a very superior varnish of this kind, select some fine clean shell-lac, break it up, fill a bottle about one-third with the broken lac, and pour on it rectified spirits of wine until the bottle is nearly full 5 shake it frequently till all the lac is dissolved, or until the spirit will not dissolve any more. If the spirits of wine is good, the lac should be dissolved in about thirty-six hours. Now The bottle must be very well corked. stand it in the sun for three days, taking care not to disturb or shake it, the fecula will settle to the bottom, leaving a clear brown liquid above. Pour off this supernatant liquor, and you will find it a very superior brown hard varnish, which can be put on your work with a camel-hair brash, or be rubbed on with a pad, as I will presently describe. All these varnishes can be bought of artists' colourmen. French polishing is not a nice operation, but it is quite as well to know how to do it, as you may wish to polish a piece of wood for diaper carving, and a French polisher may not be at hand. French polish is made of one ounce of shell-lac and a quarter of an ounce of gum-sandrac, one pint of spirits of wine, put in a well-corked stone bottle, and kept near the fire until dissolved but it is much better to j purchase the French polish of some colourman or druggist. To French polish make a round pad of wool or cotton, or take a large roll of list or flannel, dip it into the polish, and put the pad into a piece of fine strong linen that is not AND WOOD CARVING. 53 fluffy ; dip your finger into some clear linseed oil, and dab the linen with it until the surface that comes in contact with the wood is slightly oiled ; the oil makes the pad slide round easily, but too much oil will spoil the varnish. Having put in your pad, gather the linen firmly round it, and proceed to rub it on the wood in small circles ; add more polish and oil as you go on. In a short time the polish will look greasy, but continue the rubbing, and you will soon get a fine polish. It requires a little knack to polish well, but it is soon acquired. The hard brown varnish I have described above can be put on like French polish. For white wood that you do not wish to colour, white hard varnish must be used, and for the foundation, or first coat, strong clear size can be used ; it is a great saving of expense. Let me recommend that, when finishing off, polishing, staining, or varnishing a piece of work, strict attention should be paid to proceeding in regular order part by part, leaf by leaf ; do not go dodging about from one part to another, but do each in succession, it saves an infinity of time, and spares the mortification of ultimately finding some place left unvarnished or unfinished. The management of the "carvers' friend," the glue-pot, must conclude this chapter. Choose the glue carefully j it must be clear, transparent, and without spots, specks, or streaks in it. Salisbury glue is the best. The glue-pot is double j the inner pot contains the glue, the outer one is half-filled with water. This is a contrivance to keep the glue hot whilst being used, and to prevent the glue from being burnt by the action of the fire ; in fact, it cannot be subjected to a heat greater than that of boiling water, as long as there is any water in the outer vessel. Having selected the glue, it must be broken up into small pieces, none larger 34 A MANUAL OF FRET CUTTING than a shilling. Put the broken glue into the inner pot, and pour on water sufficient to cover it ; let it stand for at least twelve hours, when it will be found to have absorbed nearly all the water, and each piece converted into a thic*. ielly ; pour off the water that may have remained unabsorbeci, see that the outer pot has sufficient water in it, replace the inner pot, and set it to boil. When the water has boiled a few minutes, the glue will be ready j it should be the consis- tency of thin cream, and should run from the brush freely. If the glue is too thick, it will never make a neat joint ; if put on too cold, it will not make a neat joint ; neither will it make a neat joint if it is not well squeezed out, so as to leave as little as possible between the fractured parts. When you desire to glue up a fracture, warm the wood if possible, and make preparations beforehand to bind the fractured parts together when glued. If the fracture is an outside leaf or point of a delicate fret-cut frame, and there are no means of tying or wedging the parts together, other means must be adopted. Fasten the frame or whatever the work may be, firmly down on the table with your holdfast, putting a piece of paper under the fracture j put the glue pot for a minute or two on the fractured parts to warm them, apply the glue, press the parts firmly together with your fingers, keep pressing for two or three minutes, and then they may be left to dry. The paper prevents the glue sticking to the table, and can afterwards be scraped off the joint. AND WOOD CARVING. CHAPTER IV. WILL now suppose my young readers to have fret cut their pattern, to have purchased a few tools, and, anxious to carve up their work, to be looking for instructions how to proceed. I will presently recom- mend to their notice a particular pattern. As a preliminary to these instructions, and with the inten- my tion of putting readers in the way of excelling in this beau- tiful art, I will here lay down one or two maxims and useful rules that I wish them to impress on their memories and keep ever before them until the practice grows into habit. And first Whatever you cut, cut clean $ leave no rags, jags, or fragments. Clear out completely, and quite clean every angle and corner j it will make your work look neat and workmanlike. Get your work as smooth as possible, with whatever tool you may be using before finishing with either file, scraper, or sand-paper. The less sand-paper is used the better. Let every stroke of chisel or gouge be made and regu- lated by purpose and design, not hap-hazard or at random, and in order to this Study well your pattern or design before commencing to carve it, and decide upon the effect to be produced, which wav. and how to lay and turn the leaves or scrolls, how ,5 A MANUAL OF FRET CUTTING deep you will carve them, and how and which way you will turn or bend the stalks, so as to give a natural undulation and appearance to the whole work. Put the real leaf (when carving foliage) by your side, and follow nature as closely as possible j you can have no better guide. Keep your mind on your work and constantly on the alert, do not let your attention flag ; remember that a careless moment may cause a slip of the tool, and blemish your work, or entirely ruin it. Be particular in holding your tools ; to a beginner this is most essential, or you may acquire bad habits. Right hand grasps the handle of the tool j left wrist down on the work ; ringers of left hand over the steel ; thumb underneath. build up your work, as it were, from the foundation ; begin at the stem and go on to the leaves ; don't skip from stalk to stalk, from leaf to leaf, or from one part to another, but bost* or finish each leaf or part as far as you can, before commencing another, and go through the whole work regu- larly. There are times and occasions, of course, when this rule may and must be violated, but experience will teach you. In solid carving, the whole of the work must be bosted before any attempt is made at finishing. Every piece of work of any importance must go through the three stages blocked out, bosted, finished. If your work should be scrolls and shields, or work in the renaissance or older styles, observe the rule laid down ; settle some plan in your mind as to the effect to be produced, and carry out the plan. It may, and I dare say will, be diffi- cult at first to follow this rule ; you may have to try a bit of * To bost seems to be derived from the Italian word "Abbozzare," to sketch, outline, or from the French word " Ebaucher," to sketch, etc. AND WOOD CARVING. 37 the work first, to form an idea of the effect to be produced, but bear the rule in mind and act upon it, as soon as you have gained sufficient experience, and can see with your mind's eye the completed carving in the rough wood before you. I may here remark, parenthetically, that it is a good plan to have two pieces of work in hand at the same time, so that if one is large and intricate, and likely to last some time, you may relieve the eye, if it gets wearied or confused, by turning An to the other. artist not pleased with the effect of his picture, or if he fails to catch the desired effect, puts it aside for a week or ten days, or even more, and works at some- thing else, or gives himself a holiday j then when eye and mind are quite rested, he takes again to his picture, the fault at once becomes apparent, and the remedy suggests itself to his mind. In like manner you can rest eye and hand by changing one work for another, leaves and flowers for scroll work, and so on. If in a piece of work you are perplexed how to proceed, how to curve or turn a leaf, or if the effect does not please or satisfy you, and there is no one at hand whom you can consult, put the work aside for a day or two like the artist, and on taking it up again the cause of failure and the remedy, or the way to proceed will, in nine cases out of ten, at once suggest itself. Learn to use the tools and carve with the left hand as well as with the right, it saves an immensity of time and trouble, as you will rarely have occasion to shift the work. I have seen the French carvers at work j they seldom use screw or holdfast for small work, but wherever they can, they fasten the work down on their bench with three or four slim nails, called "pointes de Paris," similar to those used in 38 A MANUAL OF FRET CUTTING French wine cases. They carve equally well with the left hand, shifting the tool from one hand to the other as occa- sion requires, and go round to the further side of their bench occasionally, if there is room, and they rarely have occasion to shift the work that is once fastened down. Practice with the left hand on any bit of wood or piece of work you do not much care about, and you will soon be able to use the tools quite respectably with the left hand. With a broad shelf to your bench, it will be impossible to go round to carve there, and the work must be shifted ; but with the carver's screw, the use of which I will explain further on, the shifting the work is a momentary affair, only remember that the less often your work is shifted the better, for moments swell into minutes, and an aggregate of minutes makes up more time than any one should permit himself, or should like to lose. Jt is by economising his moments, as well as by his skill, that a good workman is able to get through the amount of work required to gain a comfortable livelihood. To these rules for work let me add a recommendation to use red ink for copying your patterns; not the common office red ink, but the red ink used by engineers for their plans it is pure carmine. For this recommendation there are several reasons if patterns for fret cutting are copied with black ink, the colour is so nearly like that of the saw, that if the day is cloudy and the light in the room not very strong, the two combine and embarrass and weary the eye, whereas carmine being a perfect contrast to the colour of the saw, the eye distinguishes it at once, and follows the motion of the saw along the line without embarrassment and without fatigue j the dark colour of the black strains the eye, the carmine does not. AND WOOD CARVING. 39 Again, if you would wish for any reason to reverse a pattern, either to humour the wood, which may not be large enough for the pattern if laid on the right way, whilst it would be large enough if turned the other or reverse way j or if you should wish to make a corner bracket, for instance, the pattern for one side must be laid on the reverse way for the other, unless you have the pattern for left as well as right, or have attained sufficient knowledge and skill to carve it on the reverse side in both these cases the ink would ; come in immediate contact with the wood, which being wetted by the paste would draw the ink, and thus cause a deep stain, which would have to be carved or scraped out, and as this might oblige you to lower the more prominent parts of your carving, it would greatly mar the effect by giving it a flatter appearance than was intended. In that beautifully white wood, sycamore, a black stain on the prominent feature of the carving would be almost irreparable. When the most prominent feature of a carving is lowered, the other parts are thrown up in proportion. It will be as well always to bear this in mind, it may prove useful in many cases. Red ink (carmine) does not sink into the wood, but can be washed or scraped off easily. Now in respect to your tools ; they must never be left blunt or notched, but be ground or sharpened at once, and put in their proper places. You will frequently have to use a variety of tools on some small intricate piece of work, taking them quickly up one after the other, and you will have to put them on the table close by your work ; learn to- do this in order, each class of tool by itself, so that you may not lose time in hunting for a tool. Different carvers have different methods of laying their tools on the bench j some 40 A MANUAL OF FRET CUTTING lay them with the handles towards them ; others lay them head and tail ; others again lay them with the steel towards them, and this plan is most commonly adopted, because the eye at once selects the tool required. But whatever plan you adopt keep to it, and carry it out consistently. Learn order and neatness j return every tool to its proper place on the shelf each night, and after finishing any piece of work clear the bench, and sharpen your tools before com- mencing another. Remember and act up to the wise old "A adage place for everything, and everything in its place;" so that you may be able to find any particular tool at once, even in the dark. Utilize every minute you have to spare ; if there is not light enough for carving, sharpen and put away your tools, and put your workshop in order. Do not throw away your broken saws or tools ; keep all the pieces, you will often find use for a piece. Take care not to let oil stay too long on your oil-stone, it cakes into a tough sort of varnish, but have a coarse duster or bit of coarse linen cloth at hand, and with this wipe the stone clean as soon as it gets dull ; put the cloth down by the stone, and after sharpening your tools on the stone, wipe them on the cloth to take off the oil that clings to them. You must also, after passing your tools over the leather sprinkled with emery, that I have before described, rub them on the cloth, for a little of the emery and oil always clings about the edge of the tool, and would soil the carving perhaps in the most delicate part, where there may not be sufficient wood to spare to scrape off without spoiling the effect. Take care you do not always ml your tools in the centre of the oil-stone ; it would soon rub into a hollow, and you would AND WOOD CARV1XG. 41 not be able to get the tools to a true bevel. Rub them in every part of the stone in succession ; and when sharpening any broad tools, such as inch or inch and a half chisels, or plane irons, carry the tool right over the end of the stone. using each end of the stone on alternate days, or some similar arrangement. But should the oil-stone through in- advertence get into a hollow, level it again with the flat stone and emery and water, as I have before described. V Keep corks upon the ends of your skew chisels, tools, and maccaroni tools j they are easily injured, and the two last are difficult to grind and sharpen. As a final recommendation about your tools, don't hack them about for any common purpose. Keep a few rough tools for rough use, and joiners' tools for joinering your work. Let no one touch your carving tools but your- self, or some one who understands their use, and has some skill with them, and keep your carving tools exclusively for carving purposes. Do not slur over these rules and precautions, and con- demn them as tedious, but study them thoroughly, and practise them on every possible occasion ; you will soon prove their utility, and they will save you time and trouble, and spare you much vexation. Now, if my young readers are at a loss for a simple pattern for their first trial at fret cutting, I would recommend them to send to Messrs. Moseley and Simpson, of King Street, Covent Garden, for their pattern No. in. Here is a reduced copy of it, which by the courtesy of Messrs. M. and S. I am permitted for the purposes cf this work to copy from their " Photographic Roll of Patterns." The patterns on this roll are all on a reduced scale, and the roll is sent to customers on application, to At A MANUAL OF FRET CUTTING assist them in choosing their patterns, and it may be kept two days. It will be seen at a glance that the pattern I recommend is as simple as possible; great part of the lines are straight, the curves are easy, there are no complicated turns, no difficult corners, and the pattern is as elegant as it is simple. It is a book-tray end ; the full size is six inches by five, and the price is only sixpence. Messrs. M. and S. will also provide prepared wood at two shillings, and for a first trial it would be better to get it ready prepared. If any of my young friends have carpenters' tools, and wish to prepare the wood themselves, let them get good old wellseasoned Italian walnut, and dress it down to three-eighths of an inch. The tray-board should be five-eighths of an inch, an the ends should be let in to half its thickness. The grooves for the ends must be made very exact and very neatly, and the ends must fit tight, and be glued in. When the ends have been fret cut the saw marks should be obliterated with a fine file and glass-paper ; the wood may then be either varnished or slightly rubbed with wax and turpentine melted together. When sending for the above pattern, I should recom- mend you to send at the same time to No. 35, a one-shelf n bracket, inches by 10, price one shilling; prepared wood, iwo shillings; number 119, an easel, picture frame, io| AND WOOD CARVING. 43 inches by 7, price ninepence; prepared wood for it, one shilling. When my readers shall have fret cut these patterns, they will be perfectly competent to select for themselves the patterns suited to their powers, they must not always choose the most easy patterns, but go on to those more difficult j it will keep their interest and attention from flagging, and will bring out and improve their powers. 44 A MANUAL OF FRET CUTTING CHAPTER V. Y young friends must not rest satisfied with copying j patterns on tracing paper j they must learn the use of the pencil, and how to reduce or enlarge any pattern accurately. I will presently show them a very simple and very efficient, though rough-and-ready, way to do this, and they must learn and practise it, for without this knowledge, the use of many beautiful patterns, and many pieces of beautiful wood will be lost to them. Always use the best tracing paper when tracing a pattern, and it is a capital plan to have a fine piece of Bristol board to put under a pattern when tracing it, if the pattern is delicate, and the lines are to be very fine 5 if the pattern is bold and the lines are not to be very fine, then a couple of sheets of white blotting-paper is the best thing to put under the pattern. And you must have two leaden weights, each six inches long, one and a half inch wide, two-tenths of an inch thick, covered with stout cartridge paper firmly pasted on. Lay these on the tracing paper over the pattern when tracing it, to prevent it from shifting, for if it should shift you would spoil your copy, waste your paper, and lose your time. Economize your tracing paper as much as possible j save every little piece, small scraps are often most useful for taking off little portions of patterns that you may have, or may wish to alter, or little additions that you may have AND WOOD CARVING. 45 sketched ; and when pasting the pattern on to the prepared wood, use a good sized but stiff brush, what cooks call a paste brush will do. The brush must be an inch in di- ameter, and it must be stiff, or you will not be able to rub on the stiff paste thinly ; so, if the bristles are too long, cut them, if you can cut them evenly ; if not, then bind them round and round within an inch and a quarter of the end. with fine, strong twine. The paste must be tolerably stiff, and quite free from lumps, and must be put on thin, and not " " slopped on too much ; thin paste will inevitably make the wood warp. Some pieces of wood will warp, however little paste is put on 3 in this case, take a sponge and wet the concave side freely, lay it down flat, put a heavy weight on it, and it will come straight ; or if you have a good work-table, and the holdfast described in Chapter I., lay the board on the bench the wet side downwards, put a thick piece of board over the pattern (the piece of board must be nicely smoothed to prevent injury to the pattern), put them under the holdfast, and screw it down gently until the warped wood is quite flat. After wetting you should wait five or ten minutes to let the water soak in before putting it under the holdfast, it will prevent the chance of its splitting.* Now here is a pattern of a single shelf bracket, reduced by the plan I promised to explain, from a full sized working pattern. The full size of the pattern is twelve inches from top to bottom, and eight and three-quarters from side to side j the breadth being a trifle more than two-thirds of the length. I took the pattern, cut the paper to an exact parallelo- * Wood that is warped can often be very quickly made straight, by holding the convex side to the fire after slightly damping the other. 4 A MANUAL OF FRET CUTTING gram. I then folded it down the middle, folded the doubled paper again, and then folded it once more ; this made three creases on each side of the centre one, and four divisions, the edge of the paper completing the outward division, eight divisions in all. Then I doubled the paper across, and folded it as before, exactly in half, then in half again, and once more in half, and this made eight divisions, and marked the paper with sixty-four parallelograms. Then I took a small piece of paper of the size and proportions I wished my AND WOOD CARVING. 47 reduced pattern to be, three inches long, two and three' tenths wide, and folded it as I had folded the large pattern. Then where the lines of the large pattern, leaves, or stalks, crossed the creased lines, so I drew them on the reduced pattern. In the illustration, I have drawn in ink the creased or folded lines to guide you, so now suppose you try to enlarge it to the full size. Take a piece of paper, cut it to the full size of twelve inches by eight and three-quarters, fold it as I have just described, and begin to draw the pattern. Com- mence wherever you will, the crossing lines will be your certain guide. For instance, take the top leaf on the right j you see that the upper inner angle of the leaf comes nearly on the second cross line a little below, and not quite half way between the fourth and fifth upright lines ; make a corresponding dot on your folded paper. Then the outer angle of the leaf comes nearly on the same cross line, but a little above, and at the same time touches the third upright line ; again make a corresponding dot upon your paper. Then you see that t the point of the leaf touches the third cross line at a little distance from the third upright line ; dot it. Then note where the lower angles of the leaf on each side are situated in respect to cross and upright lines, and dot their places, then the stalk, and lastly the upper angles of When the leaf. you have carefully dotted the various posi- tions of the angles of the leaves, then draw lines from one to the other, giving them the same curves as the pattern, and you will have a perfect enlarged copy of the leaf. Hold the enlarged copy at a little distance from you, compare it with the pattern, and you will see at once where any little altera- tion may be required. Proceed in this way with all the leaves and stalks, and you will have a perfect enlarged copy 48 A MANUAL OF FRET CUTTING of the whole. On this system you can with facility enlarge or reduce any pattern, and 'a very few trials will make you thoroughly conversant with the method. But if you should try any more complicated patterns, or find any difficulty in marking the positions of any of the parts, then you must sub-divide the squares in which you find the difficulty into as many more squares as may be necessary ; I should think you would never require to subdivide any square into more than four. If you wish to copy or reduce any printed or painted pattern that can not or may not be folded, you must lay it down on a flat board, and with pins stuck into the board fasten stout white thread across the pattern ; these will perfectly represent the creased lines. In fact, you must always be on the alert, and exercise your wits and ingenuity to overcome any difficulties you may meet. I will by and by give you an instance out of many I know, of the ingenious ways in which the natives of India produce great results by small and simple means; and I my trust it will encourage friends, as I hope I may call my young readers, to search for and to try similar ingenious and simple solutions of any difficulties that may stand in their way. Now, having enlarged this reduced pattern of ivy leaf bracket to its proper working size, suppose you- try and fret cut and then carve it. Choose a piece of Italian, or any nice straight-grained walnut, let it be half an inch thick; when prepared, this will give plenty of thickness to make the leaves undulate nicely, to lay them, that is to say, any way you please. By laying a leaf, I mean making it slope or slant to the right or left ; that is, its right or left edge will be lower than the other, and so on. AND WOOD CARVING. 49 I will suppose it to be fret cut, and that you are pro- ceeding to carve it. First of all go over the fret cutting, and see if there are any irregularities to correct, any unevenness of outline to reduce, any little projection left by the saw in finishing the cut, and take your file and correct it. This is only for quite beginners, and for fret cutting that is not to be carved j when a little skill in using the tools has been acquired, and the eye has become accustomed to the work, all irregularities caused by the saw will be corrected in carving. Then the next thing is to fasten the work firmly down on the bench. I will suppose you to have a carver's screw ; the head of the screw is squared, the point ends in a conical sharp, threaded screw; the nut is flattened and turned up at the ends, and on each end there is a square hole that fits the head of the screw, which, as I said before, is squared on purpose. Now, as the screw cannot be fixed into the wood of the bracket, which has not substance enough anywhere, another plan must be adopted ; so take a piece of wood (almost any wood will do) four inches long, one and a quarter inch wide, one inch thick ; bore a hole in the centre of it with a moderate sized gimlet, and insert the conical end of the screw. Put one of the square holes of the nut over the head of the screw, and using the nut as a wrench, turn the screw round until it is firmly fixed in the wood. This piece of wood is called a bridge, and is always used for fret or perforated work when there is not sufficient substance in the wood to hold the screw. If the fret work is too fine to allow the screw to be passed through it, then the holdfast is used with the bridge between it and the fret work, to prevent the teeth of the holdfast from marking the wood. Now pass the screw through your fret-cut bracket, and So A MANUAL OF FRET CUTTING then through the hole in the table put in the nut under the table, and screw down tightly, and you will find your bracket fixed firmly enough for any ordinary force necessary to be used. But if you have to use the mallet to your tools, at a distance from the screw, and in the direction of the circumference of the circle that would be formed by the work turning round the screw as an axis, you will find it shift, and of course other means must be adopted to help the screw. In most English carving tables there are square holes cut through, in which are inserted stops like the carpenter's bench stop. These stops are flush with the table, and can be knocked up as required. In aid of your screw knock up one of these stops j if it is not near enough to the work, you can insert a piece of wood between the stop and the bracket. my In table, though there are three rows of holes that are made for the holdfast, there are no stops in them, but I have three or four large rough pegs ready to slip into any of the holes in aid of the screw ; and I find this arrangement most convenient. Now consider well how you will lay the leaves of the bracket j they must not be all carved and laid the same way ; this would be very tame work, but you must vary their positions, making them lay or slope this way or that, accord- On ing to your tast >. this point I am not going to advise you, excepting so far that you must have regard to the point and height from which the bracket will be viewed, and do not let the eye look under too many of the leaves. Accord- ingly, you must not make the point of the upper leaf, for instance, bend back, but rather bring it forward, and depress the two bottom holes : this will throw the leaf forward to AND WOOD CARVING. 5t meet the eye ; whereas, if you were to reverse the process, the eye would catch the edge of the leaf, which would be foreshortened. When you have decided how you will lay each leaf, take half-inch, half-round gouge, and begin to hollow out the leaves, and in one direction or the other carve as deep as the wood will admit. When you have got the centre of the leaf very nearly to the required depth, take your pencil and sketch a centre rib from stalk to point ; then, if you have not got a maccaroni tool, which, with its use I will describe V hereafter, take your tool and make a light cut along the pencil mark on each side of the rib to be left, commencing at the stalk end, leaving it the proper thickness, and running Now off gradually into the finest possible point. deepen the cuts gradually, and then with a flat gouge remove the wood on each side, according to the shape of the leaf. Take great care that your gouge does not carry off or score the raised rib. Perhaps before attempting to raise a rib on your bracket, you had better practise on a spare bit of wood. Sketch out an ivy leaf, and try to cut the raised rib both with the grain and across the grain ; the latter is most difficult, and requires a very steady hand and a very sharp tool. Half-a-dozen trials will give you a good insight into the art of making a raised rib. I am anxious you should execute it well, because it gives a much more handsome and artistic ap- pearance to the work, which will well reward your trouble. When you have got your leaves to very nearly the shape and thickness required, take a flat gouge, or any gouge more suited to the shape, and smooth them off, leaving as few marks of the tool as possible. But re- A MANUAL OF FRET CUTTING member, whatever you do, don't make your leaves too flat, don't make them look like mere pieces of board. The branches and stems must be iii /// /I/ nicely rounded and undulated ; this kind of work is done with gouges, skew chisels, rasps, and files, and also with a peculiar tool, a double bent gouge. With this tool, of which I annex a drawing, you can cut along a straight line or bent stem when ordinary chisels and gouges could not be used, from the stem being sunk below the leaves, or some other peculiarity of position. It is a first-rate tool for rounding or hollowing out foliage, or for scroll and shield work, where a straight-shanked gouge cannot be used. In carving your leaves you must pay particular attention to the run of the grain of the wood ; and, indeed, in whatever you may be carving, not leaves only, or you may tear the wood, cut too deep, and spoil your work} so, if you find that the grain slips away trom the tool, and you are cutting too deep, or tearing the wood, turn it round and cut the other way. AXD WOOD CARVING. 53 CHAPTER VI. HE . maccaroni tool is shaped in this way, \ / , so that it has three cutting edges, one horizontal and two nearly upright. The bevel of these edges is on the outside ; it is a very difficult tool to grind and sharpen, and it should therefore always be kept in a sheath a scissors sheath will do or it may be thrust into a fine soft velvet V cork. The tool should be kept in the same way. The maccaroni tool is used mainly for making a raised vein or rib on a leaf. It will be seen that the sides or walls of the tool lean a little outward. This is to favour the cutting of the rib if the walls of ; the tool were at right angles to the horizontal edge that is, quite upright it would, for all V practical purposes, be no better than a very open tool, and might be dispensed with. Now, the way to use the maccaroni tool is this : You take a pencil, and sketch out the rib the width you intend it to be at its base, running off to a fine point as the leaf tapers to its extremity ; then tilting the tool a little to one side, you make a cut all along the line, and then in like manner cut along the other line. Of course you will not sketch your rib until you have got the leaf to very nearly the depth it ought to be. The cut of the maccaroni tool should leave it the proper depth when the remainder of the wood is cleared away, 54 A MANUAL OF FRET CUTTING which must be done with a flat gouge. To make a really neat rib, it should be done with just two clean cuts of the my tool. The caution that concluded last chapter was this : " If you find that the grain dips away from the tool, and you are cutting too deep or tearing the wood, turn it round, and cut the other way. This cannot be too strongly urged upon my readers, therefore I repeat the caution j for if the fibre oi the wood is strong and tough, by cutting against it you may quite spoil some nice piece of work, not only by cutting toe deep, but by tearing the wood in places where the marks could not be obliterated, or where the work could not be altered But if the nature of the work admits of it, you can also cut across the grain ; indeed, in many cases it is far easier to cut across the grain than with it, and in due course I will show how cutting across the grain will greatly facilitate your work. Now, it will frequently happen, when carving foliage, for instance, that, from the form or 'position of the leaves, you have no option, but must cut against the grain, and this may happen in a place where there is nothing to spare. In this case the wood may be taken down by a file or a riffler, which is a carver's bent file, and of which there are many shapes and sizes, adapted to every occasion ; but if there is rather more wood than can conveniently be taken down by the riffler, or it is otherwise inadmissible, make use of a sharp half-round gouge, keep your hand low, press firmly on the wood, and take off as thin shaves as possible. See that your gouge is as sharp as oilstone and razor-strop can make it, and then, whilst pushing on the gouge, turn the wrist round. This makes a sort of drawing cut, and if you take off thin shaves, as I have advised, you will, nine times out of ten, produce a quite clean cut, however cross the grain may be. This method of cutting must be practised, for it is most AND WOOD CARVING. 55 useful, and it must be practised turning the wrist to the right as well as to the left, to adapt your cut to circumstances. For turning the wrist to the left, the tool handle must be held in the usual way, the hand over the handle; to turn the wrist to the right, the hand must be under the handle. But this is amongst the many things that only practice and experience can teach. I can but show the road to follow ; to persevere in it rests with yourselves, and on yourselves far more than on teaching or the teacher de- pends your success in this delightful art. Now let me strongly and earnestly advise and urge all my young readers to learn at once to use their tools with the left hand as well as the right. Jt will increase their power of carving immensely, and enable them to carve more expeditiously, saving the many minutes that would otherwise be expended in shifting the work under the screw, or holdfast. Don't say to yourselves, "Oh, I can't use my left hand; there is no use my trying." You can use the left hand. The left hand with practice can do everything as well as the right ; where it cannot, it is from want of practice. If you are not quite convinced as to the capabilities of the left hand, just observe, the next time you dress yourself, how expeditiously it can button your waistcoat; and when you sit down to breakfast or dinner, see how deftly it can handle the fork. I daresay that in carving wood you will find the left hand rather clumsy at first, but persevere for a week or ten days, and you will find it worth while to continue to persevere. The left hand will do everything as well as the right, but it must be practised in youth ; at a more advanced age it is less capable of learning. Begin to practise at once ; fasten a bit of any wood down on the bench, take a gouge in the left hand, hold it as the right hand holds it, and place the S6 A MANUAL OF FRET CUTTING right hand in the position of the left ; then " whittle " away at the wood, turning the gouge with the wrist to right and left to make clean cuts. At Chapter IX. of this Manual, full Now instructions on this point will be found. draw a little pattern, and try to carve it as neatly as possible. Try and take off the smallest possible shaves, and exercise the hand in every way. Having carved the leaves of your bracket, and got them as smooth as you can with your tools, you must now proceed to round and ornament the stems and branches. The rounding is done with skew chisels, gouges, and the double-bent gouge, of which an illustration was given in the preceding chapter, with files, and sand, or glass-paper or glass- cloth. The stems and branches look very well when simply rounded and tooled with the V-tool, or tooling-gouge, which is the smallest sized round gouge one-tenth of an inch but ; thus treated the stems look rather tame, so you must vary the treatment by imitating the knobs and hollows and uneven A recesses that are seen in the real stems. very effective and artistic way of ornamenting the stem is to imitate the cicatrice left by a broken-off leaf, or by a torn-off branch ; the latter generally leaves a deep hollow, just where the branch sprung out of the stem. This hollow dies off gradually to nothing, and if some time has elapsed since the branch was broken off there is always a thickening at the edge of the bark which makes the hollow look deeper. Then you can imitate the excrescences that are frequently seen in old stems or branches, in oak particularly, or you can imitate a branch cut off, of which the stump is left. Then the roughness of the bark is imitated by close incisions with the V-tool, or tooling- gouge. These incisions must not be long, continuous parallel lines, but they must be varied by little short strokes or digs, s I may call them, and these little strokes or digs must net AND WOOD CARVING. S7 be parallel one to the other. This would be formal, and tame, but their direction must slightly vary, as well as their length and breadth and depth. Then there is another species of ornament most useful for the bend of branches, and which is to be seen in Swiss carved brackets. This may be called the zig-zag pattern or ornament. It is intended to represent the cross fissures and marks that are seen in the bark of some trees at the bend of the branches. It is done with a flat or quarter-round gouge, the hand swaying from side to side, and at the same time advancing by alternate steps each corner of the tool. Here is an illustration. When the left corner of the gouge is to be brought forward the hand leans the tool over to the right to lift out of the wood the corner to be brought forward, and when the right corner is to be brought forward the hand leans over to the left, and so on. This when done across the grain is easy enough, the pieces come out clean, and leave a neat zig-zag. But to do it with the grain requires a practised hand, a very sharp tool, great pressure, and a particular knack which is not easily described, but can be acquired with practice in a short time. The stem of the ivy at the bottom part of the bracket Now is quite thick ; there are three branches and two forks. here is a capital opportunity for the exercise of good taste. The stem will look very well if merely rounded and then tooled as above described with the V-tool or with the tooling- gouge, but, as I said before, it will look much better, more natural, and more effective, if, instead of merely rounding the stem, you make some hollows in it, from the two forks of the branches ; for instance, make them deep, and let them S3 A MANUAL OF FRET CUTTING run off to nothing, then round off the space between, which will then become a continuation of the branch, or, I should say, the origin or spring of the branch. If this is tooled neatly and in a varied manner, the effect will be excellent ; the other part of the stem can be varied by knobs, or hollows, as your fancy dictates. But I should strongly advise my readers to purchase a really well-executed specimen of stem A and foliage, carved by some Swiss or German artist. study of this, after the little I have written about it, would teach my readers more in ten minutes than pages of further and more minute description. Now, having done all this, the next thing is to make the support to the shelf ; here is the pattern. You see it is just a repetition of one side of the lower part of the bracket, and you will, of course, trace it off from your en- larged copy. This support has to be carved on both sides, as it is seen from both sides. If you carve both sides of the support in the same way, the greatest care must be taken not to cut too deep, for fear of cutting through in some deep parts, as I once did. I had taken great pains with the bracket, and was doing my best with the support, as I intended it for a present, when all at once 1 found that I had carved a hole in the leaf. It was a very annoying, but at the same time a very fortunate, acci- dent, for it taught me two things : the first was to keep my thoughts on my work and not to let them go wandering on to other things j the second, was a much better plan of Now carving both sides of the support. it is very evident that if both sides of the support are to be carved alike, the hollow parts of the leaf must be very shallow, which looks AXD WOOD CARVING. 59 poor and tame, or the wood must be thicker, which is still worse, for in some places you would have a thick edge to meet the eye, which is very ugly, and if this thick edge is divided by a deep cut, and each part sloped off to the edge of the leaf, so as to represent two leaves, laid back to back, it is very little better. The plan I adopted was to carve one side of the leaf to represent the upper surface, and then to carve the other side to represent the under surface. In this way, it is very evident that it is utterly impossible to carve through, for this simple reason, that where there is a hollow in the upper side there must be a corresponding rise in the under, and as the leaf must be brought to a fine edge all round, that is, where it meets the eye, it looks light and elegant. But it must be remembered, that all the veins on the lower surface must be raised veins, not incised, and this is the only trouble- my some part about it. I should advise young ^friends to rough out the shape of the under surface, and then sketch the veins with a pencil, before cutting them. The leaf must not be cut too thin, but sufficient substance must be left in the middle to make a firm support. As the beauty of the under side depends mainly on the way in which the raised my