scroll carving

[ctregan]

What are some of the pitfalls of scroll carving? Is there a "short" list of common mistakes people sometimes make?
Along with studying masterful scrolls, I have been also been looking at a few duds, trying to find things to avoid. You could call it "learning from other peoples mistakes."
Any input on this subject would be greatly appreciated.

[Darren Molnar]

One pitfall that's always in my mind while I'm making is that the saw is cutting straight down, when rough cutting around the curves of the spiral. If I'm not paying attention, my line tends to cut inward. The result of that is having the walls of the spiral, when looking at the scroll from the front, taper in, instead of being parallel.

Another pitfall I try to avoid regards accuracy. I try to cut as close to the pencil line as I am brave, on that day. I find that If my rough cuts are allowing too much wiggle room for refining later, then the scroll ends up being too big. Or it takes too long to correct. Small is beautiful, when it comes to scrolls. A lesson i am constantly relearning myself.

The scrolls I like looking at the most are ones that look like they were confidently worked, but competently worked also. Too much fussing looks cold, not enough looks sloppy, it's a fine line, I find.

I think sharp tools are the order of the day, also. I find that if I'm struggling with getting the scroll to look decent, And I'm on the third band aid, it means my tools should have been sharpened yesterday, But I was too stubborn to stop.

And I try not to over-sand things, either. Sanded curves and concave and convex shapes made with sandpaper have a kinda mush quality about them. Cut ones have a crisp character that really sit well on a scroll. Try to finallize the shape with the chisels and gouges, and use the sandpaper, if at all, just at the last minute to clean things up, without loosing the freshness of the tool marks.It's not a sin to leave visible tool marks, it adds to the look of it.

I have trouble tring to stay loose while I'm making scrolls. My neck stiffens up, my wrist gets sore. Concentrating too much, I guess. So don't forget to breath!

That's the short version of my pitfalls. hope it helps.

[Don Harris]

Great tips. Thanks.

[Ken McKay]

Make a "protected file". It is a square file with one face ground down so it just rides on the surface while filing the edges of the volute.

[ctregan]

Thanks for the insight, I also recall an earlier post about the difficulties keeping the center line after the carving begins.

[ctregan]

Originally Posted by Darren Molnar

Small is beautiful, when it comes to scrolls. A lesson i am constantly relearning myself.

It must seem odd carving a bass scroll after your many years of working with violins!

[arnoldschnitzer]

Darren's post above contains several pearls. Here's one more: grind a chisel into a slightly rounded shape (at the tip, of course), and sharpen like a razor. Now you have a tool with which to cut the verical walls of the volute, which will not dig in at its tip edges. Otherwise the edges of chisel will constantly be chipping away deeper into the volute faces. Then you will have to deepen the face...then you will have to deepen the vertical wall cut...then you will have to deepen the face...then you will...

[Darren Molnar]

Hey ctregan,
I mark the center line after the profile is cut out and finalized, in pencil. The pencil fades out fast, So I actually mark the line with an awl mark, maybe 4 or 5 indents over the whole length. Then I can use those as a giude to refresh the pencil line. You can usually see these awl marks in the finished scroll, so using that method depends on whether or not you like that sorta thing.

The bass scroll, yeah, not having a lot of fun right now, I admit. I miss not being able to cradle the scroll in one hand,and carve with the other, as with a violin scroll, and I miss the control of using a tool that looks a bit bigger than the thing I'm carving. Been working on it all this week,feels like its dragging on, but it will be finished today. So by tomorrow I will have forgotten al the frustration,, and will only remember the pleasure of it all. And i'm sure too, that by the time I've made a few, I'll find it just as enjoyable.

[Darren Molnar]

Could any one share some tips on carving out the peg boxes, that's something I feel I've always done a bit crudely, and would like to try and clean them up a bit. Clean up the process, and also clean up the final appearence.

[Don Harris]

Someone suggested to me that I make a scraper out of a cheap chisel. I turned the edge and used it to scrape the back of the box, which to me was the hardest part to get smooth in certain areas. Worked pretty well.

[arnoldschnitzer]

I like the look of gouge marks in the bottom, and leave them right off the gouge. I clean up the sides with a rasp and file.

[Martin Sheridan]

Somewhere there out to be some pictures on the net of scroll carving procedure. I think it's easier in some ways to carve the scroll than to do the neck area where your thumb goes.
With a scrool you can make one ear slightly different than the other, but the neck itself has got to really be right and feel right.

Two methods for peg box carving.
Mark it out right so you know that part you're removing.

Take a nice sharp chisel and incise the lines that form the peg box walls. "Worm" your way along from the nut area forward with a nice gouge. The worming is effected by twisting the gouges right and left as you move it. Keep on doing this until you've hit bottom and clean up the walls with your nice sharp chisel.

With basses there is nothing wrong with using a big drill bit to drill down and remove a lot of the wood. Then clean everything up with your chisel. The bottom of the pegbox should be narrower than the top leaving the bottom of the outside of the pegbox wall thicker for strength. Make sure you set and reset your drill press depth gage properly or as Antonio said, "youa gonna be sorry" and ruin a nice piece of wood.

Finally plain maple is much easier to carve than highly figured wood. No matter how nice the wood was on the backs and sides of the great old violins, the makers almost always used plain wood for their scrools.

Sharpen and resharpen and then sharpen your tools.