Moving Targets

When it comes to carving it’s all new to me – every day. At least to an extent because technical and aesthetic issues always crop up at inconvenient times.

A student at WoodenBoat School asked me if the basic processes got old after a while. I observed that on a daily basis, something always seemed new about it. While I was always driving towards the same objective of carving the boat or ship, I frequently had to stop and think things through because the designs were different, the wood was different, and it was never the same old stuff from one day to the next. But, you outline, boast in, clear the groundwork, rough out the shapes, and then the detail? Yes, I do all that, but sometimes, the design or the wood surface creates the need for variations, detours, or alterations in work style. In other words, it’s just like any other part of life – it’s not always the same.

In this design, I had technical problems carving the groundwork ( flat space) between the jib sails. On Jim Bode Tools, I saw some old C. Worth grounding tools for short money, and both solved the carving issue and filled the blank spot in my tool kit. The tools, over a century old, solved the carving problem. But racking the tools made my workbench much less roomy. I had to pause work while I reordered the tools. See, small changes make it all new.

I’m using white pine for these schooners I’m carving. This piece was very soft, and I wasn’t aware of how soft it was until it was too late to decide that I might want to work on another, less detailed design. The nature of the wood created a need to change how the work proceeded. Shaping the sails was easy enough, but the flat groundwork and the deck profile were problematic. Some of the tricks I used on the previous carving caused problems due to the wood’s tendency to fuzz when working.

When this sort of stuff happens, you take a break, and resharpen tools (which reduces fuzzing). Then you reach for the can of shellac. The two thin coats of shellac soak in and harden the surfaces. Sometimes, you might use varnish or thin cyanoacrylate cement to do the same thing. Don’t overdo the application, or you’ll create a worse problem and a mess.

So Yes. In a way, it is all new to me every day. Tomorrow I’ll be researching schooner rigging because I was unhappy with the masts and spars on the last schooner. That, too, will be all new to me.

The things I’ve described in this post are part of why I like to term mastery a moving target. You build basic capabilities and have them tested. You must find new aesthetic or technical problems and broaden your tool kit to solve problems.
That’s why It’s all new to me – every day.