Letters and numbers are a great addition to your chip carving projects you can see on this 14 inch plates for my wife that I carved on our 25th wedding anniversary lettering on the bottom and then of course the 25 years of marriage dated up on the top, makes it into quite keep sake.
I have laid out some practice letters and some numbers on my practice board here just transferring it with a graph like paper on to my board. I am going to use the first position with my knife when chip carving letters and numbers can review that lesson it is on my earlier my chip carving lesson. So go back and take a look at that if you need to review the proper technique and procedure for holding the knife.
I am going to start with the letter "A" and to perform this chip cut let us go ahead and start with this line here. I am going to leave, these are called serifs on the bottom of your letters if they serifs I am going to go ahead and leave those until I carve them on the end. But right now this is not a very wide cut right through here.
As we get to the top, it gets a little wider across the top of the "A" so I go a little bit deeper with my cut. Okay, and then let us take this line in here. I love chip carving letters and numbers. Okay to finish my letter "A", I will put my knife right into here to get the narrow leg of this letter.
So a little bit left right up in here, not much just take that out right if there is a little piece left up on the top, go ahead and carve the bar across the center. And to finish it up, I will take out the serifs. Just put your knife on the bottom of your previous chip and roll out to the edge. Same over here, and then for this last serifs I will go to second position with my knife, from upon the blade—spine the blade again put the point right at the bottom and just roll it out.
So there you have it a chip carve of letter "A". Let us go ahead and carve the letter “B” do the vertical cuts first when the chip is wider we go a little bit deeper with our cuts when we get to the bottom. Next, I am going to carve these curves. Get the depth right there. Draw your knife out for the narrow part. Start to make the curve. Now, I got the inside curves of the letter “B” to carve yet does not matter which one you take first I am going to go ahead and take the top one.
While I am up here, I will take out the top serif, and might as well take out the bottom serif just to turn in my board another time. And now, I will carve the bottom of our letter “B” to finish it up. As you come across here, it gets a little wider so you need a little more depth on your cut and then come up and take out the rest of your chip, so there is letter “B”. Okay, not much different with the letter “C” it is a curve cut again. Here is the wider part of the chips we get a little more depth. And as it gets narrower towards the top draw your knife out and then come back down for the depth.
A, B, C were part of the lay through the alphabet, let us jump ahead to the letter “S”, curve cuts. I will start by the end cut as my board is already turned in this direction. Next, we will take this one. Okay, so there is a little bit of depth on the “S”. A very narrow part through here, so I do not need much depth at all. My thumb is locked against the knife handle in the first position of my cut come across very narrow again and the top.
A number of you have asked how to get real smooth curve cuts, I will be addressing this on a separate video but the key is to stand the back of your knife, back end of the handle and extend it up so the point is more directly into the wood and you are dragging the last middle around the curve. Like I said, I will address this on a separate video but just to remember that is the main key raise the end of the handle higher so you are dragging the last middle around the curve.
If there is any little bit left in the bottom of your chip just go back in the same position with your knife do not gauge it out and just carefully take it out. So there is a nice smooth letter “S”. Numbers are carved basically the same way. Pretty easy, there
