the tools of
Surprisingly this is not about carving knives. Drawing and carving such a small and intricate design over a large area posed several issues along the way that needed to be figured out.
Pictured below is a 40 inch compass I made in order to draw very large circles. I made a 1/4" x 3/4" piece of mahogany, which I could have made any length I wanted really. On one end I attached a small stand off to get some height in order to give me some creative room on the drawing end. You'll notice that I took the needle from an actual compass and inserted it into the stand off.
In the middle and right pictures are both sides of the drawing end of the compass. As you can see by loosening the top thumb screw and sliding it along the length of the aforementioned shaft. If I remember correctly, these brass sides were part of a compass kit, so that made it particularly easy. What was not part of the kit was the lead holder. I took the lead holder out of an actual compass and carved a groove, making sure the bottom of the groove would apply pressure to the lead holder. This is actually the same way it is done on a real compass. The middle picture shows the plastic thumbscrew which then tightened draws the lead holder towards the more narrow groove bottom, thusly tightening the lead holder.
Below is a small, well I call it a compass, but what it actually does is trace inside or outside rounded edges. The key to this device is the bottom edge. If you look closely it is rounded, however in middle of the round there is a divot taken out, creating two points. If you keep these two points against a the edge, it will keep the tool at a right angle from the current position/angle at any given moment. Without the outer corners being rounded, they'd interfere with inside rounds. Without the divot taken out of the middle, it would interfere with outside rounds.
People get a kick out of this one. Pictured below right is a large expanse of weave I carved on Grey. As soon as I even started drawing the pattern I noticed that I would instantly go cross-eyed. I believe it is because I was physically so close to the very small intricate and vast repeating pattern that my eyes were confused on what they should focus on. Had the design been more open or differentiated, it would be fine - like other parts of Grey. I needed to be close in order to carve the intricate design, however I needed to focus in order to execute! With a little experimenting I discovered that I needed to reduce the amount of light coming into my eyes, and also reduce the amount of pattern that was visible. While carving I usually wore reading glasses in order to magnify everything which I'd guess is quite normal for this style of carving. So I needed a combination of two glasses.
I took an old pair of sun glasses and painted the lenses solid black in order to reduce the amount of light coming in. I then drilled out two small holes which would serve to reduce my viewing field. I then cut up a pair of magnifying 1.5 glasses and drilled small holes in the sunglasses to accept the 1/4" of "leg" I left on the lenses. Mounting them this way, I was able to flip the mags up when I didn't need them without having to completely remove the glasses.
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