deer head

I do intarsia work some how I got myself in to doing a 3-D carving of a deer head. Did not have a compter at the time, but had some books. I made the head out of 3/4 pine boards stacking and cutting or shaping. Turned out not to bad. Question how do I get the groves in the antlers. I made the antlers out of 1' by 1' pine that I degree cuts. Any of you carvers out have any easy way of doing this. By the way I have been working on this sense DEC. 6, 2003 and I ownly charge the guy $125.00 life size head. I thought it would take two months to do. HELP HELP

[Donna_T]

Well, it's been a couple of years since I've done deer (in relief) but if I remember right, I used both a small v-tool and a power carver (with a white inverted cone bit) to put the grooves in the antlers. Once I got them in (I had a real antler to use as a reference) I used a white scotchbrite pad on a Dremel to go over the carved antlers to soften the look.
Try that.

Boy, sounds like you got a project and a half. Don't believe there's a carver alive who hasn't gotten themselves into one of those 'pickles.' Best you can do is finish it and learn to do better next time. Those projects always seem to expand and hang over your head.

Donna T

Grooves in the antlers may be put in with a power carver, use first a small diamond ball, run it slowly so it dosen't cut in too deep and is easier to control. After making the basic lines with the ball, I like to go over the grooves with a slightly tapered bull nose diamond bit, just drag it slowly along the groove . This will level and smooth the groove. 220 swiss sandpaper will round the edges and clean it up nicely. Remember not to run your bit too fast. Hope this is some help.

[AlArchie]

This is not from a deer antler, but from a sperm whale I did, and it's the same technique.......used a palm gouge to remove the hollows.. short, sweeping cuts along the longitudinal axis. The cuts were not made straight...swing them off to the side, just a mite. The gouge needs to be really sharp, so you can raise the end of the cut against the grain without tearing. Sharp gouge and shallow cuts do the job

I had comments that it looked like an antler before painting.

Al