Designing & creating a rough out

[mpounders]

I've learned a bit and had a lot of fun carving other people' roughouts. I always try to add my own touches, but I've been wanting to do more of my own designs. I used Super Sculpey clay to model my design and work out details of the figure, using an armature of coat hangers and aluminum foil attached to a piece of plywood. The plywood was cut to 4x4", to match the dimensions of my block of wood and it was baked in the oven for 30 minutes per directions. I then mounted it in my carving duplicator to carve my rough out. The duplicator was built with plans from woodgears.ca for about $140. So far, it's working pretty good; lot's of sawdust and chips. I'm gong to talk to heinecke about roughouts and see if they can make them from clay models and what the cost would be for small quantities. Thanks for looking!



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[SlowMover]

Re: Designing & creating a rough out

Great looking model, would make an excellent carving. Good luck on your roughout endeavor.

[Paul_Guraedy]

Re: Designing & creating a rough out

That clay model looks great. I sometimes do a piece in non-hardening clay to work out the major details. But, I never take them to this level of finish.

A bird carving instructor used to plaster casts of the pieces he used for his roughouts. He then brought the plaster piece to use in class as a "go by". I can't see why your baked clay would not work equally well.

You might check with Debbe Edwards and other instructors about roughouts. A few years ago she was getting roughouts made by someone around Branson. It might be easier to work with someone local; especially on your maiden voyage. Might also check with UTC Hardwoods Learn All About Hardwood - UTC HardWoods as they may have more info no who the roughout maker might be.

Good luck, Paul

[JoeVM]

Re: Designing & creating a rough out

Interesting project Mike. Good luck with it. Now, about your clay model--if I was that good with clay sculpting I might not whittle wood at all.

[Nomad]

Re: Designing & creating a rough out

What Joe said! The model is super!

[DADDIO]

Re: Designing & creating a rough out

very nice looking , and a great idea . i'd be interested in knowing the your progress on this project. i've had several roughouts done for me that i designed but i carved them and sent them to the roughout guy. please keep us posted because i will be very interest to see what you find out for possible future way to do it myself.

[mpounders]

Re: Designing & creating a rough out

Well, I got it roughed out! It looks a little ragged, but it should do. After I got the front profile outlined as deep as I could, I cut out the outline on the band saw, which reduced the amount of wood to router off and sped up the process. I used the bandsaw again after routing one side. By using a square base, it allowed me to rotate the model and the blank and keep everything aligned. I may run a dowel through the next one I try, in order to keep the top more rigid. I'll have to think about that a bit. Here's the finished roughout .......what do you think?

Thanks for looking!



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[SlowMover]

Re: Designing & creating a rough out

Look good to me, but I have a question...probably a dumb one. That roughout looks like it is exactly the same size as the model. Is there enough extra wood to carve off the fuzz and down to the finished carving without making some parts too small, or changing the proportions much? Just curious if roughout makes leave a little extra like we do when we make a cutout. Again, good luck in your quest to make roughouts.

[Jeff Bailey]

Re: Designing & creating a rough out

Nice job Mike!

[mpounders]

Re: Designing & creating a rough out

Nope, you are correct in your observation. I tried to add extra clay to the model to account for this, but I was wondering if I got it closer, if it might make it even easier/quicker to carve it like the model? We'll see, and if it gets a lot skinnier, I'll just have to try and modify it and make it work. I think the solution may just be to set my bit just a little deeper in the router. Right now, both it and the follower are set to be the same, so it make sense just to have the bit shallower? Or maybe I just need to wrap some tape around my follower to make to offset more in all dimensions? Will have to experiment a bit!

[Tom Ellis]

Re: Designing & creating a rough out

Looks like you about have it figured out Mike. Roughouts generally have that knob on the head that you carve off, and that is for the head attachment in the duplicator.
It seems like if your stylus to follow with is just a little larger than the router bit, it would leave that little extra that you are after.
You might ask Goody a few of these questions, as he built a fabulous duplicator set-up, with four positions.

Looking good so far. Tom

[dme253756]

Re: Designing & creating a rough out

Very interesting! Thank you for sharing. I've never carved from a rough out. It must be a whole new experience.

[snickerbocker]

Re: Designing & creating a rough out

Mike on our duplicarver the bit is set back about an eighth of an inch to allow some wood.

[mpounders]

Re: Designing & creating a rough out

Thanks maam! I'll make some changes before I do another. What kind of bits do you use?

[mpounders]

Re: Designing & creating a rough out

It's fun and easy in some respects, because a lot of the unnecessary wood for a particular design has already been removed, by someone else. So you get to go right to the details and other fun parts. But really, most carvings usually go through a "roughed out" stage, but we are often the ones doing it, starting by sawing it roughly to shape and then rounding over corners and removing saw marks to get it to the roughed in stage. I am hoping the modeling process will help me in quickly giving an idea a visual form and working out mistakes or changes before making the chips fly.