Relief carved or applied carving?

H

HSteier

Well-known member
In the current edition of FWW there is an article about the Irion Co. and several masterpiece reproductions they made. There is a picture of the cornucopia carving on the stile of the Derby chest. Both this picture and a picture of the original in the book about Sam McIntyre reveal absolutely no irregularities in the background. So I wonder, was this an applied carving. There are areas of the carving that are very thin so it would be difficult to carve in it's entirety and then transfer it, so I wonder would it have been roughed out then applied to the stile and completed after being glued to the stile?
Similarly the skirts of rococo Phila. highboys and lowboys often have scrolls and feathering on the lower margins of the skirts. The skirts seem perfectly flat with no irregularities or errant tool marks at the margins of the carved elements, so I again wonder whether these were applied.
I am starting the planning for two Phila. lowboys and am looking for some help.
Diid anyone  out there do the Gratz highboy withe Gene Landon at Olde Mill. Was the carving applied to the skirt on the lower portion or was the background relieved?

Howard Steier
 
Howard - I can't answer your question on the Derby high chest with authority (perhaps someone that has seen the original in person can), but most decorative fronds and frets of the period were applied.  Good examples are the frets found on the Charleston pieces in Biven's 3-volume authoritative tome on the subject - I've not found any illustrated in the text as anything but applied.

That said, the old guys were really, really good at reducing the ground on a relief carving to a perfectly even surface - the Garvan carver tea tables listed at Sotheby's and Christies this January are good examples.  As a carver, I can confirm that it isn't very difficult to level the background with a router plane and scrapers, so long as it's done before the modeling of the ornament.
 
The carving on the lower rail of a Phila. highboy typically is less than 3/16" proud of the background. I have used router planes but typically to rout cross grain grooves. In lowering the background of the stile, after setting in (outlining) the carved area with gouges, would you start lowering with (#11) carving gouges or start directly with a router plane?

Howard Steier
 
I took the Gratz class with Gene. The apron carving is relieved from the apron. the tip of the shell on the bottom is 5/8 proud of the surface. while the board portion of the apron is 7/8 thick. so we started with a 6/4 piece. and about 2/3 ended up in the garbage.

When removing the waste I sawed off most of the waste thickness on my bandsaw (think resawing). Others in the class used a router. But for the final surface I just used a wide chisel and scraper. it really wasn't hard or to time comsuming.
 
Howard:

Depends on how confident you are with gouges, and how patient you are with a router plane.  To use a router plane successfully to get a flat background, you do need to do some advance planning.  It's quite frustrating to realize that you've lowered the ground with gouges in an area that's bigger than the sole of your router plane, so you've no support to ensure a consistent grounding depth.  It also helps to have both the large and small sizes of router planes - I use the ones made by Lee-Valley, but I would imagine that the Lie-Nielsens and antique Stanleys would work just as well.

One other comment - if you're reasonably good with gouges, you really don't have to have the ground leveled to an absolutely consistent level to be convincingly "flat" - all that's required is that it be close, say within a 1/16" or so, and that it be smooth, which is were the scrapers come in.  I personally use a set of carving scrapers made by Auriou (out of business, but I think you can still get them from The Best Things), but you can just as easily buy a couple of cheap sets of Crown Tool card scrapers and profile and size them to your liking with a hacksaw and a file.  I've even seen an article in one of the woodworking mags last year by a fellow that used plate glass shards.  He just smashed a piece of glass in a paper bag, picked out the pieces that were the size and profile that he wanted, and put a piece of thick masking tape on one edge to make a handle.

Finally, Christopher Schwarz at Pop Woodworking wrote a blog article about using razor blades as scrapers - you just use a single-edge razor blade like you'd find in a hardware store, bend it slightly along the back to crown the blade, and you have an instant scraper that's disposable when it gets dull.  Sounds like a great idea, but I haven't personally tried it.

 
Earlier I started this thread enquiring whether the carving on Phila highboy and lowboy skirts was applied or whether the background of the skirt was lowered to leave the carving proud.  Well it turns out that in some cases the answer is "neither"
I had the opportunity to see two sets of matched Phila. highboy/lowboys at the newly re-opened American wing at the Met in New York. The skirt boards of these four objects were perfectly planar. The carving was very carefully let into the skirt and not above the plane of the skirt. This is not noticeable en-face but only by sighting along the length of the skirt or be applying a straight edge (which almost got me tasered by the large eastern European female gaurd).
I marvel at the quality of the carving on these pieces. I consider myself a competent amateur until I look at the works of these masters.

Howard Steier
 
Howard-It's extremely rare that the carvings of the type you describe are not applied. I've seen one or two Philly lowboys done from the solid. The reason is simple: it's too difficult to do it any other way.
The problem of getting the carving off the background is a real one. Do not make the glue too strong. I use about 2-3 tablespoons of hot hide glue to a small styro cup of water. You will think it's too watery, but it will work fine. When yo're done carving use a very thin artist's palette knife to gently loosen it from the ground. Then use cold water to wet and then peel off the paper that will stick to the back.Al
 
Nice to have your comments Al.
I agree that getting the carvings off the temorary background is difficult. I attached them with full strength hide glue. In order to get them off I moistened the background and popped the whole thing in the microwave for 10 sec at a time until it was hot and the hide glue gave way.

Howard Steier
 
Howard- I know it's a little late for this, but I was reading the back and forth on applied carving and realized I gave you some bad advice. You had been asking about skirt carving and I was not paying attention and was thinking about the draw fronts.
As someone correctly pointed out, the skirt carving is very shallow and modelled right in the skirt board. The trick is to do the carving and backing out and still make sure the bottom edge of the draw opening remains straight across. I find the best way to do this is to fair the ground in with a straight chisel, bevel down.
There are sometimes applied elements to the skirt as well, such as the shell in the middle, but these are quite thin even though when done they look pretty dramatic. One I remember doing was less than 3/8"-Al
 
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