Letter Carving

Today I spent a good part of the day doing something that I don’t usually do everyday, carving Hebrew letters! I really enjoy carving and have done some throughout the past 15 years or so, from chip carved signs to hand carved eagles. It seems like I tend to do more letter carving than anything.

Jonathan recently made a bed for a customer who wanted an inscription in the bed in Hebrew.  Here are a few pictures of work in progress.

Typically, I just do all the letters with a single chip carving knife, but the wood used in the bed was quite hard, so I roughed it out with a v-tool and then went back with various gouges to remove the waste. Then I cleaned it up with a razor sharp chip carving knife. This bed is made out of old growth Long Leaf Pine, which was reclaimed from some old building timbers from New York City. There are  many hard and soft growth rings in the wood which made it quite difficult to execute. Hopefully my next carving job will be in a more manageable wood like my favorite, basswood!

Here is the finished carving. We actually teach a one day class on chip carving, where you will learn how to carve borders, rosettes and even some lettering. If you interested in the next course, which will be held on June 24th,  click on the link. Chip Carving Course

2 Responses to Letter Carving

  1. Rob wageneck May 18, 2011 at 12:43 PM #

    Great work Frank. What is the the English translation/reference?

    • Frank Strazza May 18, 2011 at 6:28 PM #

      Hi Rob,
      Thank you, I sure enjoy carving! The writing is from a scripture, the reference is Psalm 121:4