The stop cut is a two-stroke bench knife cut that frees a v-shaped trough along a pattern line. A round, flat, or bull nose chisel is then used to cut the wood in the lower level of the design, sliding the chisel into the stop cut. When the chisel edge meets the stop cut a clean sliver of wood is released without damaging the higher level. Today we are going to look at the steps used to create a stop cut and to do basic rough out work in your relief wood carvings.
The pattern shown here, the Mule Deer Buck, is an in-depth tutorial that is posted at FamilyWoodworking.org and WoodworkingChat.com. These are two great, online message boards where wood carvers and woodworkers can share their ideas, experiences, and techniques.
Stop Cut
2. Move the tip of your bench knife a small amount of space away from your first cut. Angle the knife tip towards the first cut. Pull a shallow cut, maintaining that small space between the knife tip and the first cut.
3. The two cuts will release a thin, shallow v-shaped chip of wood. The chip will leave a straight wall along the pattern line and an angled wall in the background area of the pattern.
5. Stop cuts may also be created using a v-gouge. The v-gouge makes both the straight wall cut and the slanted side cut in one stroke. The g-gouge works exceptionally well when you are creating stop cuts that flow with the grain of the wood. For tight areas in a pattern, as the small openings in the feathers in the pattern shown, you may find that the bench knife will provide more control.
Rough Cutting into a Stop Cut
2. Start you cut about 3/8″ to 3/4″ from the stop cut in the background area. Move the chisel or gouge edge towards the stop cut, slowly deepening the cut as you work. Stop when your gouge reaches the stop cut. I usually cut a series of gouge cuts, that slightly overlap.
4. Alternate your stop cuts with your gouge rough-out cuts to slowly drop the background area to your desired depth in the wood.
5. The background area that has been gouge rough cut will at this stage will slowly taper from the original level of the wood at its most distant point in the cut from the pattern line to the your desired depth at the stop cut. Later in any relief carving you can work the remaining background areas down to the same depth.
Practice Board Exercise
Alternate making stop cuts and working rough out cuts to slowly drop the depth of the background elements in the design.
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