Thread: Hobby Horse Head

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Had prob's loading pics

Nice work so far.
Re pic 4, looks like the wee fellah is baptising it with it's new name already.
Regards

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Another progress pic
For a first carving I'm not finding it as frustrating as I thought it would be. And I may get addicted
I will be looking for some more chisels soon as I will need some bigger half round ones for roughing and shaping when I do the rocking horse.

You must have some serious band saw!

This has the makings of an absolutely grand project = with care it should last for many decades
to be handed down.

Now that you are out of the gate, please indulge me with a couple of suggestions =
Carver's gouges: Judging by the project size, you have to figure out how to clamp it down.
You need a 30oz lead-core mallet and a 9/15 for hogging out waste. Then a 2/30 for smoothing.
Your spoke shave will serve you well. I'm not so sure that you need smaller sized gouges.
Dinky detail may spoil the majesty of the overall head concept & design.
Carving sharp is not carpentry sharp nor kitchen sharp. Proper leather strop on wood and honing compound.
PS: pine, any species of pine, is a right booger to carve any sort of detail.

I specifically used a new blade on the saw 10 or 12mm deep so wasn't the best blade for getting around the curves. but with a few passes in both directions in the tight spots I got around.

The chisels I will post some pics up, I sharpend them all to 25 degree's. For the roughing I mainly used my 3/4" flat chisel. I only just bought all my chisels bar my 1". I just ground them on my grinder then used 800 grit wet n dry on flat surface. I do own a strop but haven't had any luck sharpening with it as yet, admittedly I've only tried sharpening a cut throat I made the handle for. I did get a very god edge with the wet n dry.
My mallets My old man just made for me on his lathe, (3) the smallest is too light and I will need to put a weight in in. they are all out of one piece.

The holding I have already drilled the base for the dowel to be fitted once finished and I will use a short length of dowel and a 3" screw through the center for clamping. I've used the head so far for holding.

That should go well. I'd like to see your custom-made mallets.
But without enough mass, they can't help much.
My 30oz with the lead core is as big as I'll ever need. Love it.
Standard bevel for wood carving gouges is 20 degrees.
There's enough steel behind that edge for both hard and soft woods.
Hard woods, you just make thinner cuts.

On the strop, when you get to the end of each pull stroke, STOP.
Keep your elbows tight against your sides to preserve the working angle.
Lift the tool straight up. If you pull it up, that can only round off
the bevel to something unworkable like 40+ degrees.

Impressive workmanship......could even go as a "rook" in a chess set???

I like what you have started to do for this one.

The mallets are:150g, 350g, 660g, the bigger two are out of merbu and the smaller is out of Pine I think, (he made the third one as he thought I'd need a lighter one) it is way too light to use and I may weight it but I think it will be too small any way as for the amount of force needed hand carving/force I think will be sufficient.
here is a photo of my chisels too, I think I will try the 20 degree on a few of the chisels and see how it affects the cutting. dos that make them a bit thin for hard woods?
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No, I don't believe that 20 degrees is too thin for hard woods.
Old dry birch (Betula sp.) or Alder (Alnus sp.) is tough slugging,
Heeding god advice, I just went for thinner cuts and it worked OK.
20 seems to be the industry standard for carving gouges.

You are pushing the wood open to whatever bevel angle the tool has.
25 degrees is a harder push than 20. I've done that with skew chisels
to make sweeping, curved relief cuts.
In really soft woods, I make the stop cuts with a carving knife (like a Moor lg. chip knife).
I can get to the same depth eventually but I need only to cut the wood open 12 degrees.
The 20 degree bevel of a carver's stop chisel (like a 1/8 or a 1/12) exerts a lot of
sideways pressure and I've broken/split some not so delicate parts that I wanted to save.
I'm doing a relief carving in a 18mm pine box top and I've lost some bits already.
Good thing it's just for myself.

Thanks for the pic of your mallets. I'd like to have a nice wooden one some day.
My lead-core mallet is about 850g (30 oz). It was hard to get used to the mass
but from a little tap to a full swing, I can get the work done.