African Mahogany – Approx 9 1/2″ square, 3/4″ thick – “Bead and Sausages” edges – lettering painted Red Oxide acrylic – Shellac finish
This one has been done, all but painting, for a long time. I finally painted and finished it this week.
More carving, not just lettering, was what I wanted for this sign. The beads and sausages edging is classic. There are no rules on the ratio of beads to sausages. I used this arrangement to nicely fill the length of the edges. This edge decoration actually took about the same amount of time as the letter carving.
The edges were first beaded using a scratch stock, run once from the face surface, and again from the edge. That created a bead that runs around the corner of the edge. Or put another way, the bead is almost 3/4 of a round, not just a surface effect. Then, the carving commenced using only one gouge, one that fit the radius of the bead.
The lettering is my own hand drawn design, with the style of “Best” derived from signs used about century ago for shows, fairs and circuses.
Learning to cut this free from style of lettering is not difficult. Mary May published a Christmas Greeting lesson about carving a script style of lettering.
UAU!!!
It looks great!
Beautiful work Bob!
Very nice Bob!
Your compositions are always well thought out. The gentle arch at the top and bottom of the panel. The words “Best” and “Ahead” are larger so the message comes through even a distance where the other words cannot be read. The angle of the word “Best” gives a feeling of forward motion as well.
Well done!
Bob, I wanted to ask you about the bead/sausage work — did you make a scratch stock to fit your gouge or did the bead come first and then the gouge to fit? How did you manage to go around the corners without a lot of tear out from the beading? Thanks — John
Hi John,
I had a scratch stock made long ago that makes a bead about 5/16″. I used it to do the beading first. Once on the face and once on the edge. Careful scratching left no tearout. I didn’t go around corners, but straight beading across all directions, leaving an intersection at each corner.
Then, I found a gouge to match, a #6 also 5/16″. Fortunately, I have enough gouges to find a very close match. But, a slightly wider #6 would also have worked.
Does that help?
UPDATE: I made a photo tutorial to better describe what I was trying to say.
Thanks António, Greg and John!