tudor rose

photo copyright Karin Corbin 2012

I am not yet close to being good enough at carving to satisfy my personal standards anytime soon but I am getting better at small scale carving. This rose is .75 inches side to side, I want to be able to make it perfect at half that size by the end of the month. I did not get in very many hours of practice in the last week so I was pleased to see any improvement when I made this carving last night. Spending time watching video carving lessons has helped despite the lack of practice just as the teacher in the videos said it would. The only problem is I kept falling asleep watching the videos.

In the photo above is a wax carving tool I modified to be similar to the shape of a Ray Gonzales Hooked Skew Chisel The shape of his skew chisel intrigued me and there are many good reviews about it. However it does not come in a size for carving small scale miniatures so I decided to give it a go to make one. After I modified the shape I took it to my neighborhood knife maker for a professional sharpening. The tool looks bigger than it is as it was much closer to the camera than the carving.

I really like this little tool, it does a great job of detailing in tight spaces. The curve keeps the tips from digging in when using it for background cutting. It can also be used as a scraper for smoothing out problem areas. The cutting edge is 7mm from tip to heel. I would like to have more of a hooked point at the heel but that will have to wait until I have my knife guy custom make me one from high carbon, high quality steel that will hold an edge for a long time.