House Sign - Carved Oak

[xy mosian]

Hi all,

Here it is my latest work.

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Carved in Oak for a house in the Charente.
My first incised carving.
Done with 1970's Stanley bevel edged chisel, more recent Sorby broad sweep gouge and cheap chip carving knife.

If I were to do it again I would increase the size of the smaller lettering. In this case the carving was getting close to the grain of the Oak, in size.
The board is 150mm(6") x 420mm(17"), roughly. I am pleased with the font I used although I did change the shape of the ' r '.

All in all very enjoyable, and peaceful.

xy

 

[xy mosian]

Ok so the image link did not work.
Try this.



xy

 

[Rob_H]

I like it!

 

[OPJ]

Very nicely done.

Are you going to use a finish or have you decided to let it age naturally?

 

[xy mosian]

Thanks folks.

I'm going to let it age naturally. It will live on a very old property in France and I think an un-finished sign will 'fit' better.

xy

 

[Night Train]

That is really nice and crisp.

I don't have the tools to incise lettering but was asked to carve a sign for a house so I left the lettering proud.

I removed the bulk of the waste with a router and then did the finer detail with a 6mm chisel with a reshaped cutting edge.

 

[xy mosian]

Wow!

That's great Night Train. I see that you are using the router freehand. How on earth can you see what you are doing?
I like your caligraphy too, sadly I rely the flamin' PC.

My list of tools is not very long and I have to say that the bevel edge chisel, used bevel down, was often used where the braod sweep gouge might well have worked slightly better.

Just as a matter of interest towards the end of the thing, I was carving each letter in about 20 mins.

xy

 

[Night Train]

Wow!

That's great Night Train. I see that you are using the router freehand. How on earth can you see what you are doing?
I like your caligraphy too, sadly I rely the flamin' PC.
xy

I started by placing the router over the spot I wanted to be closest to the lettering and then started, plunged and moved away from the letters in short strokes.
That gave me a load of groves going away from the lettering. I then went across the groves to remove some of the waste.
It was then down to routing clear little bits of circular areas at a time that I knew was clear of letters.
Once I got it to the condition you see in the first photo I switch to hand work. Any islands of waste left were then carefully routed away.

I could have (should have?) used a fence around the edge to get the frame dead straight but decided to do it freehand to retain that hand worked look and then went over it all with a chisel ground to a bull nose shape to make the curved profile to everything. The back gound was then randomly spotted with a hammer and die.

I must admit I also printed off the text from a pc and copied it with some refinement to make it more carveable.

 

[xy mosian]

Thanks NT, I might try that.
Now who do I think I can persuade to have a nameboard?

xy