- This is a Duncan Phyfe bow knot and thunderbolt crest.
So what I'm going to do is cut in around this bow knot
right here, and separate that from the background.
And so I'm dropping in.
I'm going to use different size gouges for this.
These gouges are just different sweeps,
meaning that the curve on them is different.
And these gouge cuts will all meet seamlessly
and create the illusion that this is a piece of ribbon.
I'm actually using the tools to design as I go.
They really create the forms.
And so this is a sequence of cuts that's repeatable.
If I do another one and I use the same combination of tools,
my design will essentially be the same.
And so once I cut in around the edge,
I'm going to just make a little relief cut here
to give me my depth.
I'm taking a V tool.
I'm just going to go around the edge here.
Give me a nice, clean line, and I'm pivoting around my fingers.
This is low relief carving.
You don't need much carving to get a good shadow.
Requires a great deal of skill.
It's quite a bit easier to get that relief that you need
when you have more depth.
I've always got my hand resting on the work.
This is the brake, and then pushing is the gas.
And I've always got the brake and the gas on at the same time,
so that I can stop this cut wherever I want to,
but I've still got plenty of power.
Mahogany is a hard wood.
Basically carving in its simplest form is taking
a tool with a specific shape, pushing it through the wood
and getting that shape.
So if I want a flat surface, I need to use a straight tool.
So the next thing I'm going to do is clean up
these thunderbolts a little bit...
Just so I know where they're passing under
and then reappearing on the other side.
And I will cut along the outside edge here,
just to give me a little advantage when I go
to take the background down.
And then I'll go in with a relatively flat gouge
and back this background out.
And if I go across the grain, it's a lot safer,
because I don't have to worry about the grain
ripping out on me.
It's really important to have an assortment of tools
because on any one carving, there might be one particular
part of the carving that can really only be accomplished
efficiently with a particular tool.
There are carvers who are probably going to do
this element in a little over an hour, I'm guessing.
And the advantage, of course, that they have over me
is that they were doing this motif over and over again.
For years at a time they might be carving
very shallow relief carving like this on furniture.
And so you just get so good at it
when you're doing the same motif over and over,
that it goes very, very fast.
And the details are done just with such precision.
There's no... there aren't any wasted cuts.
You can tell that every cut they did had a purpose,
and they probably just made it once, and it was done.
With carvers, there's always going to be a carver
that's just starting out,
and then there are going to be carvers
that have been doing it for years.
And so, you know, when you see variations
coming out of the same shop,
it's really just the different experience levels
of the different carvers.
And you would expect that.
I'm trying to model this knot.
This dives down, this part of the knot, under that.
And then this one, this cut wants to be more like here.
And this one dives down under that one.
The interesting part is that you're making something
look like something it isn't.
And it's artifice.
It's art and artifice.
You're making wood look like ribbon.
Once it reaches a certain point, then you start to believe
that it's not wood anymore.
So I'm starting to model this ribbon.
And I'm going to give it a few cuts to make it
ripple a little bit.
So the ribbon is coming over, and it's rolling like this.
So... and on the outside, I'm going to round the outside over,
as if it's taking that little flip, like so.
What Phyfe did on his was he took a little cut in here,
and then he rolled the ribbon.
It's got a high spot in here, a low spot here, low spot there.
So now I'll just do the same thing.
I'm taking an almost flat gouge, and I'm just going to pretend
I'm the ribbon and come up here and dip down
and roll around the back.
And this will give it a little bit of life
as it passes over the thunderbolts.
The carving right now is probably about a third done.
After I take the whole carving down to this point,
I would go back at the very end and clean up everything
with scrapers and carving tools to get rid of any little facets
in the work, scrape it smooth to the point where it would be
a finished carving.