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Dave's Carving Page
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Test Carvings
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The carving of such "simple" designs is one of the suggested steps in an on-line carving tutorial written by Cindi "Raven" Norejko (Print Block Carving for the Absolute Beginner).
The rectangular stamp (#2) was carved using straight-line cuts with a Speedball #2 v-gouge (45 degree). The apparent pattern [of the three central darker bars and the four surrounding lighter bars (vertically in the image above)] was created by verying the depth of the gouge as I carved. Trying to consistantly vary the depths of each carved line was an addition I made to the basic exercise block. It was not as easy as I thought it would be.
When a V-gouge carves deeper there is a corresponding widening of the cut. This width-to-depth correlation is more noticable the larger the "V" angle is. For instance, the Speedball #1 gouge, being a 60 degree blade, will form a cut that is the same width as it is deep. A 45 degree blade, such as the Speedball #2, will form a cut that is only about 80 percent of its depth. A 30 degree blade would form a cut that is half as wide as it is deep. This implies that a small variation in cutting depth when using a "low angle" blade will show less variation in cut width than a higher angle blade would in the same situation.