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Heel and volute carving

Posted: Sat Sep 07, 2019 11:24 pm
by Bob Gleason
My favorite neck carving aid. Spectacular tool for carving the heel and for finessing the volute. Where ever applicable, carving tools that work are so much more satisfying to use than rasping or sanding tools. Perfectly sized for neck work and shaves wood across the grain with no problem. I don’t use it for the neck shaft, but what it does for the heel and volute make it worth having. Like all nice tools, it’s expensive. Made by Pfeil in Switzerland. Sold by Woodcraft, among others. —Bob

Re: Heel and volute carving

Posted: Sun Sep 08, 2019 8:07 am
by ruby@magpage.com
I agree that is a good way to do the job, however at $83 that's a very expensive way to do it. My vintage C E Jennings was $10 at a garage sale, and here is a nice Bristol on ebay - on the first page that came up searching for "drawknife":

https://tinyurl.com/y39s3rq5

A drawknife is very easy to sharpen holding your stone in one hand and the tool along the inside of your other forearm.

Ed

Re: Heel and volute carving

Posted: Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:36 am
by tippie53
you would flip at how I do this
I got real comfortable doing it on my belt sander
I will be doing a video soon on it.

There are always differing ways to do things and I love seeing how others solve the same problem.
thanks for sharing
I have a few draw knives and they are a neat tool.

Re: Heel and volute carving

Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 6:09 am
by banjopicks
I would love to use a belt sander but I can't imagine how you control the dust.

Re: Heel and volute carving

Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 8:05 am
by tippie53
I use a floor model with a dust collector. I do love to watch a craftsman that is a master of tools. The man at martin used a few different draw knives and spoke shaves along with scrapers. A true master

Re: Heel and volute carving

Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 10:09 am
by banjopicks
A spokeshave is pretty easy to master and makes quick work of neck shaping without the dust. I would still like to try the sander one day. I'll have to move it outside.

Re: Heel and volute carving

Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 5:59 pm
by MaineGeezer
i just put together a rather ragged version of this
https://www.popularwoodworking.com/amer ... ing-horse/
with the thought that it might assist in carving guitar necks. I have yet to try carving a guitar neck using it, but I may someday.

Re: Heel and volute carving

Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 7:28 pm
by ruby@magpage.com
Maine

I have used a shave horse for chair parts - a great tool when you are doing things by eye and removing lots of mostly green wood. I think that it is not a precise enough tool for making a neck. Having tried a couple of ways, I like one of the 2X-material-turned-on-edge jigs as they let you get to all sides of the blank.

And a drawknife can be a little coarse for some of the steps on a neck. If you have all the tools, then you might try drawknife for gross wood removal, then spokeshave to get it very close, then rasp/file/scraper. You might use the drawknife for a minute or two, then the spokeshave for 5-10 minutes, then on from there.

Ed

Re: Heel and volute carving

Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 8:28 pm
by MaineGeezer
Definitely -- when I've carved necks before, a drawknife has been useful for only the preliminary shaping. The shaving horse just gives you another way of holding the neck while you use whatever tool is appropriate at that stage of the operation (drawkknife, spokeshave, plane, rasp, whatever). Whether it will be a useful addition to my regular setup remains to be seen.

Re: Heel and volute carving

Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 2:45 am
by Bob Gleason
When I posted the Pfeil drawknife, I knew I would get flack because of the price. I have 2 other vintage drawknives, but the Pfeil is exceptional to work with. As with all hand tool work, whatever works for you, works for you. Happy carving.