In this article we would like to try to explain the differences in our process of carving wood for any wood product. Some of this information may be elementary for some readers, but it could be helpful for others who are considering the creation of your own custom wood carving item.
There are several ways that carving into wood can be done to make the result very beautiful, perhaps very unique and it could also be very personal. Some carving types (or modes) take longer carving time than others. We couldn’t possibly cover everything about carving types, so we will summarize the processes.
We do most of our wood carving work on a computerized CNC machine, which is pictured here to the right. It is capable of carving wood up to around 22″ x 15″ on a single board project. It also features a 2.2 kw water cooled spindle and is driven by a large ball screw drive for more precision and stability. For the actual carving program, we use Vcarve by Vetric and Mach3 for the controller. If you are unfamiliar with those programs, you can google for more info if you are interested but note that the costs off all these tools are not cheap.
Letter vs Relief Carving:
The two most common types of carving is Letter Carving and Relief (Beveled) Carving. Please understand that these carving names are not used throughout the wood-working world. These are the type names we are identifying for this article. Other wood-working professionals may call them each something different.
The best way we can easily describe each of these carving is by picture examples. To the right is an example picture of a Letter Carving. It simply is where the tool carves normally into the wood to represent the letter or graphic. As noted, this is for any letter, symbol, line graphic of any kind. It is also the most efficient and quickest to carve. The recess of the carve can be hand-painted, stained or inlayed with other color/shades of wood, epoxy (color or clear), stone or anything that can be ground fine and glued into the recess.
There is another type of Letter Carving called Engraving. We won’t go into too much detail on this, but it is simply the normal Letter Carving except it is using special settings so the tool engraves instead of chipping into the wood with the tool.
The next carving type is what we call Bevel Carving. Others may know this or call this Relief Carving. Bevel Carving is where the tool is clearing a lot of the wood waste around the letter or line graphic, creating an embossed effect of those letter or graphics. There are two kinds of Bevel Carving. The first one is shown to the left as we just described. The second kind of Bevel or Relief Carving is of the same principle where the tool is carving and chipping out the excess of the design, but it is doing more than that. It is actually carving from a 3D graphic file and we use special carving tools made for 3D type carvings. Also note that when we say 3D, it is actually one side of the 3D viewing. Some wood-crafting folks call it 2DD (or two double dimensional) since it is a bit more than a normal 2D view. But the carving is done from an actual 3D graphic we call a Model that could represent an item from all angles. So if it was possible to carve all of a 3D model, it would be front, back, all 4 sides, top and bottom. We do not have the capability to carve the complete 3D models. However, we can do double-sided carving (front and back). But that is as close as we could get with a CNC machine. Many hand sculptures do 3D carving as seen with the Roman and Greek statutes. But that is a whole different topic and something we don’t do here. We can’t go into too much detail about 3D models and their carving, so we will just easily show you a simple process of its carving.
Here is an example of a 3D picture/graphic model file before carving. This model view of a flourish is just the top and a small portion of all sides. This is normal for CNC crafters. Most of the 3D model files are created by graphic designers and can cost anywhere from a few dollars each, to hundreds. It is mainly depending on quality and what the subject is representing. In our own library, we have already purchased many common models that can be used without additional cost to the customer. But it is rather limited. So you would have to consult with us to your idea and allow us to help design your project.
Next we import the model into our wood-crafting software and after setting the tools and paths to carve, this is an example of what the Bevel 3D Carve would look like.
A carving something like this could take a few hours to actually carve. The deeper we set the carve of the model, the more quality the result would become.
Hopefully this article helps the reader understand the differences in wood carving types. More detailed information can be googled if you are interested. Lastly, please use the Contact Us in the menu above and allow us to consult with you on your wood project ideas.
Than you, Ed & Lisa 