I recently tried some chip carving. Naturally, the first few efforts are
not turning out well. While looking at what I did, I wondered what it
would look like if I filled in the carved areas with some type of filler
and sanded smooth. Has anyone tried this? What would people recommend to
try to use as filler? Some of the wood fillers I looked at can shrink.
Would pore filler work? I have seen a Minwax two part epoxy type wood
filler. Would that work? I think I would need something that will bond
very well with the wood, not shrink and accept stain/finish. Any
suggestions or comments would be appreciated.

Jim Moyseenko

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 14:37:05 -0500, Jim Moyseenko
wrote:

I wondered what it
would look like if I filled in the carved areas with some type of filler
and sanded smooth.

1. Try it !

2. Ugly (IMHE).

Chip carving (certainly the way I do it) is a fairly random process.
This looks OK, and in keeping with the overall spirit of the piece
(medieval repro is great camouflage!). However drawing a plane through
your work (ie filling and sanding) makes the variation even more
obvious, because it draws a direct comparison between the shape in a
single plane. This is more obvious to the eye than an "overall" 3D
shape.

You cetainly need to sand heavily after filling. Chip carving will
tend to sink the ridges below the original surface and filling to this
level makes the whole lot disappear.

--
Smert' spamionam

Andy Dingley wrote:

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 14:37:05 -0500, Jim Moyseenko
wrote:

I wondered what it
would look like if I filled in the carved areas with some type of filler
and sanded smooth.

1. Try it !

2. Ugly (IMHE).

Chip carving (certainly the way I do it) is a fairly random process.
This looks OK, and in keeping with the overall spirit of the piece
(medieval repro is great camouflage!). However drawing a plane through
your work (ie filling and sanding) makes the variation even more
obvious, because it draws a direct comparison between the shape in a
single plane. This is more obvious to the eye than an "overall" 3D
shape.

You cetainly need to sand heavily after filling. Chip carving will
tend to sink the ridges below the original surface and filling to this
level makes the whole lot disappear.


Thanks for your opinion. I don't quite understand your reasons but the drift
I get is that it will look bad. I may try it just to see just how bad. - Jim