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In this chapter from Del Herbert’s bird carving series, learn how to rough-shape the body of a shorebird carving while accounting for the challenges of working with a three-dimensional pattern. Del explains why the top-view pattern cannot be cut directly on the bandsaw without sacrificing important breast and chest areas. He demonstrates how to use the head and pattern as guides, make angled and concave bandsaw cuts, and round the body with rotary carving bits, sanding drums, and knives. The lesson also covers shaping the breast, belly, and tail while leaving the neck joint oversized for final fitting.
Transcript
Likewise, I don’t cut the top view of the body out on the bandsaw.
Here’s how I do it.
First, I’ll trace the pattern.
I’ll trace the back end of the pattern onto the wood.
But, you notice when I do that, that the pattern is too short for the whole length of the body.
The reason for that is that the pattern was drawn along this plane.
And, when I tilt the pattern up to this plane to the top of the body, because of the trigonometry involved, it becomes too short.
So, while I can cut out the back of the bird, I can’t cut the front of the bird out with a pattern because I would lose this breast and chest area.
Well, here’s how we do it.
I take the head that I’ve dialed to the body, and I put it back on, and trace the outline of the head.
On the block.
I’ve got this guideline, and I’ve got these guidelines to go by.
Then I will go to the bandsaw.
I’ll cut the aft end of the body out.
But to cut the forward end, I have to put the body on an angle, and cut just outside the outline of the neck, and I’ll cut a concave surface on the bandsaw like this. Again, if I cut straight down, I would lose breast area of the bird.
Once I’ve got that band sawed out, I’m now ready to go ahead and round the body.
And again, I’ll take the series of Typhoon bits, sanding drum, and knives.
To round, take all of the square edges off and make my body round in this area, and round the breast and belly area of the bird.
I’ll continue that back into the tail area.
And, I’ll just rough cut the neck area, but again, I’ll leave my neck joint oversized until I finally attach the head to the joint.
This is about as far as I go for rough shaping the body.