Fret sawing and wood carving for amateurs

FRET-SAWING has, within a few years past, jumped into a popularity rather hard to realize by those who are not within the pale of its fascinations; but it is a fact that today it is one of the most popular of home amusements. Within many a pleasant home is heard the gentle z-z-z of the handsaw, or the more sonorous buzz of the jig-machine; and walls and tables everywhere are loaded with the results of these labors. Good, bad, and indifferent, large and small, dark and light, brackets, easels, book-racks, picture-frames, and other things too numerous to mention, the houses and shops are alike full of them, and still they come. A good deal of this enthusiasm is spasmodic, and will die out; but there yet remains a large amount of solid interest to be provided for.

The true secret of this suddenly acquired popularity lies in the fact that this amusement is within the reach of almost every one, that it is easily acquired, costs but little, and is really productive of good results. It keeps us happily busy, gives us a resource for rainy days, and helps us recall ourselves pleasantly to the remembrance of those friends, whom we gratify by thinking of them while we make some pretty little object to adorn their rooms.

For the young particularly, this is a most desirable pursuit. Its influences are alone for good, its associations solely refining and elevating. It does not take them to improper places, nor bring them in contact with doubtful characters. It cultivates their taste for the mechanical arts; it makes them handy and helpful in the use of the tools; it tends to develop any talent they may have for drawing and designing; and it may become a means of future profit as well as present pleasure.

For the older members of the family, too, it has its charms. We can buy brackets, boxes, portfolios, and a thousand other things, cheaper perhaps, and more finely executed, than we are ever likely to produce them ; but who can estimate the pleasure derived from the gift of an article done by some dear hand ? Slippers are all well enough in their way, but the most carefully kept ones will not wear forever. A handkerchief, with our monogram prettily wrought, makes a very tender souvenir; but they are apt to get "blown off the line, sur," and disappear. Neckties are charming, but fleeting; even the bright colors of a pincushion fade, and the stitches fray with constant use.

When, however, John gives Jane a rosewood box with her monogram inlaid in the top, and all sorts of convenient little trays inside for her jewels or her spools; or Jane gives John her portrait in a frame of her own sawing and carving, we feel reasonably sure that the gift will last for many a long year to recall us, in pleasant memories, and that time will only add to its beauties by mellowing its tints and harmonizing its tones.

Let us, then, gather up our tools, lay in a stock of beautiful and enduring wood, and prepare ourselves to become skilled workmen in this pleasant field.

 

Though good specimens of fret-sawing, well and carefully finished, are pleasing, and to many satisfactory, the rich effect of the sawing is greatly heightened, in an artistic point of view, by calling to our aid the chisels and gouges of the carver ; and here there is no limit to our fancy, and there is an opportunity to display all the ability and power we possess. A dozen people will take the same design, and with a fret-saw cut out the pattern in very much the same style; they have a line to follow; and except that one will do it smoothly, and one roughly, the general effect will be at last much the same; but, put the carver's tools into their hands, and the same specimens when finished will vary ail the way from bad to something which would be acceptable as a work of fine art. Next to drawing and painting, there is nothing which more readily shows the refinement of taste and feeling, and the education of the hand and eye, than the few strokes with which a flower or a leaf is cut out of a solid block of wood; and the number of successful wood-carvers should be as much greater than the number of successful artists, as excellence in the one pursuit is the more easily acquired than in the other.

The tools required for carving work previously prepared by the fret-saw need not be numerous or expensive, though there are more difficulties in the way of making a proper selection here than in the case of the fret-sawing appliances. We cannot help detailing our own experience.

Sometime after making our first essay at real carving on a small piece of work, on which we used the chisels and gouges which came with the little handle of tools previously mentioned, to which we had added one or two of our own home manufacture, we one day went into a large hardware establishment, and asked to see some wood-carving tools. The clerk conducted us to the rear of the shop, and, going up to a long counter, threw open two large drawers, and asked what we wished. We replied that we were only an amateur, and had come to see what they had, and what one needed in the way of a small set for general work. The gentleman smiled when he said, "We have here chisels and gouges of eight or nine different patterns and shapes, commencing at one-sixteenth of an inch wide, and increasing by sixteenths up to two inches, or more, - probably in all one hundred and fifty tools; and we don't pretend to know anything about them. Usually workmen come in with the sizes and shapes they need punched on a piece of board, and they make their selection to suit their particular work; and every man wants a different lot. We can give no advice."


After looking them all 6yer, we retired in despair, and concluded to go into the workshops, and see what the men who used them had to say about it. Here we were more successful; and from them, and other sources of information, we decided that a dozen or eighteen of the sizes under one half inch would suit the particular work for which we wished them. These tools, however, are all large, and to a certain extent awkward; that is, they are designed to stand the ordinary rough usage of the workshop, and in so far are not adapted to the more careful handling of the amateur, particularly when the amateur is a lady and so we made & pattern ; and, after some trouble to find a skilful and willing workman, we had a set made to out entire satisfaction after our own designs,

For ordinary work, however, the tools imported from England (we cannot find that there is any manufactory of then in this country), and kept m the large tool-stores, cannot be excelled; and the prices range from thirty-five to seventy-five cents apiece for the sizes under one half-inch.

We will give a select list of one dozen, and of eighteen for general work such as has been described. Those who want to do heavier work, or wish to extend the range of it, can add other tools, or, rather, different Sizes of these same ones, as they find out their needs. It is suggested that no mote tools be gotten to commence with than are necessary to make a fair start, but the collection extended as experience calls for them,

When the paragraph above was written, we intended to extend the list by six more tools. But we find that, after getting beyond those already mentioned, generalization becomes more difficult; and instead we have added figures of the bent tools (see plate of carving-tool), from which each can make selections suitable for the work in hand, or to suit particular needs. We will only say that the bent parting-tool, and bent fluting-gouge, are very generally useful. They are the same sizes as the straight ones, and differ only in the curve of the blade, which permits their use in depressions of the work where a straight tool will not reach.

There is another tool of which we have not given a figure, but often noticed in the books, called a macaroni, a round name for a square thing, it being a flat chisel with the edges turned up, and would make an impression like this. It is chiefly useful in cutting away the waste wood next the prominent veins of foliage ; but the parting-tool and a flat chisel accomplish the same work, and the macaroni is extremely difficult to sharpen, and keep in order.

The other bent tools are more valuable on work of greater depth than any we are likely to have in connection with fret- sawing; but where they are needed they are indispensable. Where it is intended to have the carved work raised on a level ground, a pick or checkering punch is useful in breaking up the flat surface. This effect may often be seen on what are called stencilled picture-frames so popular two or three years ago.

Diaper-carving is another name for a very similar kind of work. The outlines of the design are carved with a parting-tool or the graver of the wood-engraver; and all the wood outside of the figure is stamped with a checkering punch.

All parts of this work, it will be seen, are on the same level; and the effect is entirely dependent upon the contrast between the smooth parts of the design, and the stamping of the ground-work. A pattern with broad lines, after the style of plate 2, would be of suitable character for this kind of work; and a small box, or the cover to a book, would be an appropriate example.

After the carving is finished, one of these punches is taken, and the whole ground-work is covered with its figure indented by a light blow with the mallet, and the surface not regularly, that is, not in regular lines, but evenly pitted. The carved part, being left smooth and untouched, forms with this roughened surface a stronger contrast.

Besides the tools above mentioned, you will need one or two clamps, or hold-fasts, of which a good pattern is figured elsewhere, and a light wooden mallet, which can be procured in any hardware store; and one or two slips, as they are called, of Ouachita, or preferably of Arkansas oil-stone, to sharpen the inside of the gouges and parting-tools.

The tools of our own pattern, spoken of above, cost about fifteen dollars, with a single adjustable handle into which they all fitted. This was for one set very carefully made by hand; and the price was altogether too large to make them available for popular use. We are in hopes of being able to get some more made in considerable numbers at a reasonable rate.

A set of carving tools by Addis, the celebrated London maker, would cost, for one dozen assorted, about thirty-five or forty cents apiece.