One of traditional materials used for interior and exterior decor of residential premises is wood. There are many techniques, but the most spectacular decorations are obtained when slotted carving is used. The beauty and elegance of such products are amazing, while the technology itself is not particularly complex.

Features of openwork carving

Openwork, or slotted woodcarving is performed by cutting through or drilling the background. When finished, patterns and compositions look light and airy. Openwork carving is through and overhead. Through slotted thread "works" through the light. Laid on carving is when a slotted pattern is attached to some kind of base, for example, a wooden one, serving as a background.

To cut through sections, chisels, special cutters, drills or saws are used. The most productive tool is an electric jigsaw. Slotted carving with a jigsaw allows you to easily and quickly reproduce drawings of even the most complex configuration.

Preparation for work

Beginning masters should first of all pay attention to the theoretical part. Fortunately, today there is a lot of useful printed and video information about how wood carving is performed correctly, about the necessary tools, about the features of a particular wood, about preparing blanks, choosing patterns, etc.

Having studied the features of the technology, you can start selecting tools. In addition to a jigsaw and a set of files with different tooth sizes, you will need sharp knives, chisels, chisels, drills and drills of various thicknesses, spoon cutters, needle files, abrasive bars and sanding skins.

One more step preparatory work is the choice of patterns, compositions or genre scenes, for the creation of which wood carving will be used. Sketches can be made independently or found on specialized sites and printed on a printer, if necessary, having previously reduced or increased their size.

Features of different types of wood

How well, quickly and accurately the slotted carving will be performed depends not only on the skill level of the performer, but also on the wood. Each breed has its own unique properties, which must be taken into account when choosing a material for the workpiece.

• Pine. The most accessible and inexpensive wood, however, it is not very suitable for carving, and not only because of the resin content. The fact is that it consists of hard and soft layers. Cutting and grinding pine products is quite difficult to perform due to the difference in structures, since the knife and sandpaper"take" them in different ways. Plus, this type of wood has a pronounced texture, which distracts attention from the carving pattern itself, especially if it is small.
• Aspen. Slotted carvings from this wood are difficult due to the softness of its structure. Despite the fact that aspen is cut like butter, the tool “gets stuck” when cutting, and it itself is wrinkled. Beginner carvers who do not have experience working with this material should definitely not start their “career” with it, as, indeed, with pine.
• birch and linden. These types of wood have a beautiful monophonic structure, the necessary hardness and at the same time pliability, which makes it possible to implement even the most complex and intricate sketches of slotted carving in products.
• Plum. Hard, very beautiful in cross-section and well suited to all types of processing wood. It is great for creating finely patterned items such as women's jewelry.

Where to buy wood for carving

There are many places where you can get material for work, the main thing is to find high-quality and dry wood. For example, good carving blanks are sold in specialized stores for hand-made fans and art salons. In addition, you can buy suitable boards in building materials stores or at timber trade bases. And small enterprises for the manufacture of furniture and carpentry workshops are a real storehouse of dry wooden scraps of various sizes. For carpenters, such waste is no longer of value, therefore, as a rule, they are given away for free.

Another option is wooden packaging (boxes, pallets). From one such product, one and a half to two dozen blanks will be obtained.

Rules for drying wood

It should be remembered that for slotted and other types of carving, only well-dried wood should be used, so as not to later observe with regret how the finished carved product, drying, warps and cracks. Drying of blanks should not be carried out in the sun or near heating devices. The wood should dry randomly in a warm room with good ventilation. It is better to put the boards on the ends, placing planks under them to ensure air access to all sides. By the way, you can dry small blanks in the microwave for several sessions.

The working process

Slotted wood carving, stencils for which must be prepared in advance, begins with transferring the pattern to a wooden blank. The background areas to be cut out are highlighted by hatching. Holes of a certain diameter are drilled next to the lines of the pattern so that a saw blade can be inserted into them.

Next, filing is carried out close to Narrow blades of hacksaws, a slotted thread is made, the stencils for which were selected complex, that is, with small details and sharp bends. Sawing large parts with straight or smooth contour lines is carried out using wider canvases.

It should be noted that using large saws, you can get a torn contour, so it is better to still prefer fine-toothed files. Drilling is recommended to be performed and this should be done on both sides of the wooden workpiece, having previously drilled a through hole with a thin drill.

A great way to avoid torn edges and scuffs in wood is to glue thick paper on the back of the piece.

It must be remembered that the main factor ensuring the cleanliness of the cut is the sharpness of the tool, so you should take care of this side of the issue in advance.

When choosing an ornament, novice carvers should focus on simple images with large details and a minimum of “heavy” angles. Due to the correctly selected pattern, you can reduce the amount of work, resulting in a beautiful product.

Finishing carved product

After removing the background, the product is fine-tuned to obtain even and clean edges of the pattern. For stripping, steep and sloping chisels of medium and small size are used. Places of the ornament that are hard to reach for chisels are cleaned with a sharp knife. With these tools, the edges of the image are rounded off by cutting a thin bevel or choosing narrow fillets.

The processing of slotted openwork products is performed on both sides. After trimming the contours with chisels, the cut out pattern is cleaned using needle files, sanding bars and emery skins.

Modeling of the ornament is made in accordance with the applied carving - embossed or flat-relief.

The technique of flat-relief slotted carving is used, as a rule, for the manufacture of decor for furniture, cornices, window architraves, shutters, etc. Relief openwork carving allows you to get more elegant products, so it is used to create women's jewelry, screens, fillers for cabinet doors and etc. By the way, openwork furniture doors look even more impressive if you stretch a bright fabric on the back side, against which the ornamental composition will look clearer and brighter.

Wood has traditionally been a material that has been used for exterior and interior decoration of residential premises. And today openwork woodcarving, photos drawings and sketches which can be found in colorful art publications and on the Internet, amaze the imagination with its beauty and grace.

People who like to make decor with their own hands are able to master the skill artistic cutting. Wood allows you to create genre paintings and decorative compositions that can decorate own house and give to friends. Favorite skill in the hands of a connoisseur of the beauty of natural material can become the main profession. Demand for wood carvings today is higher than ever.

Tools for the job

In order to get started, you need to select special tools and explore the features of the technology. This business has its own nuances that allow you to more reveal the beauty of wood in the ornament.

You also need to stock up on suitable blanks and sketches that will be repeated on the tree in the form of patterns, lace, compositions or genre scenes.

For his work, the cutter uses a large set of tools:

1. knives;
2. jigsaws;
3. needle files;
4. chisels;
5. electric drill;
6. drill;
7. bars;
8. bits;
9. spoon cutters;
10. milling machine;
11. drill.

Newbie tip :PWhen choosing tools for work, it is necessary to focus on the quality and durability of such products. In the early stages, you can do without large quantity fixtures.

For a beginner, a special set of tools is intended. Enough to master the basics artistic processing wooden blanks.

You will also need raw materials from certain breeds. The quality of the product will depend on this. There are hard and soft varieties of trees. Each type has its pros and cons, in each case a specific processing technology is selected.

Soft breeds include:

1. Linden;
2. Birch,
3. aspen
4. pine;
5. juniper.

Soft material is easier to process, but it is easier to spoil it with one wrong movement of a knife or chisel. Another thing is hardwoods. These include:

1. Red tree;
2. boxwood.

Solid raw materials are expensive, but products from it are beautiful, durable and in demand. Experienced craftsmen work with expensive rocks, who know how to process a hard surface so as not to break the tool or get injured. Therefore, beginners should start with a cheaper and more malleable material.

When choosing raw materials, it is necessary to take into account not only the hardness, but also the color of the wood. For beginner carvers, birch will be an ideal option for creativity. It can be cut in different directions, lends itself well to drilling and cutting. When choosing a product sketch, it must be borne in mind that over time, light birch wood may darken.

Conifers are suitable for products with a large number of slots. The soft material of pine, spruce, cedar allows you to apply large drawings and create an intricate ornament. Beginners can start with conifers, as well as from linden, birch and aspen.

A novice carver should learn the basics of craftsmanship from simple ornaments. For the first job, you need a small set of tools. First you can get by with a jigsaw, an awl and a knife.

Before you start cutting, you should organize your workplace with good lighting. Having picked up a suitable blank with a flat surface and without knots, it is necessary to transfer the selected pattern to the surface of the blank. To do this, you can use tracing paper. When the stencil is translated, it is varnished on top so that it does not disappear or deteriorate during work.

A beginner will need knives, chisels, an awl. For through slots, it is better to use a jigsaw or a manual milling machine, this will save time and effort.

The carver must master all the techniques that he will then use in his work on the product. With the help of various ways of decorative processing of wood, you can create artistic masterpieces.

Artistic themes and uses

The cutter uses various sketches in his work, from which he takes an image and transfers it to the surface of the workpiece. Today, it is not necessary to use a freehand pencil image for this. Modern technological advances allow the use of photographs and scanned digital images which can be taken online.

Ornament sketch

Samples for artistic wood processing are distinguished by decorative and thematic diversity. On the Internet, on sites dedicated to this applied craft, a large selection of topics for cutting is presented. The facade of a wooden house is decorated with wooden patterns. This decor will look great on the doors and on the walls. Artistic cutting is used for the production and decoration of furniture and utensils.

Kitchen utensils and interior wooden products, decorated with intricate openwork, are very popular with buyers. In each case, the master selects the material, creates a sketch of the future product and gets to work.

Drawings are varied in their subject matter. Geometric floral motifs are used. Often the wooden surface is decorated with genre scenes depicting animals, people and trees. Wood is a very plastic material, and in the hands of an experienced carver it turns into a real artistic canvas.

For each type of artistic cutting, a special surface treatment technology is used. Using different techniques, the master creates a three-dimensional canvas on which you can notice the smallest details of the image.

Variety of tricks

For the artistic processing of wood, various technologies are used. In each case, the choice of method determines the product itself, its purpose and the type of wood from which it will be made. During the existence of this applied type art stood out a few cutting:

1. flat-relief;
2. embossed;
3. excavation, or geometric;
4. slotted;
5. contour;
6. voluminous.

The pattern can be through, flat, embossed, three-dimensional, small and large. The choice of finishing directly depends on the size and functionality of the wooden product. For large items, such as decorative carvings for house facades, a large pattern is used. For interior items and for furniture, craftsmen apply small patterns to the product, which are carefully worked out.

Flat wedge pattern

Such an image is distinguished by a small relief. The image has the shape of a silhouette, and all the details are located in the same plane. For execution, an oval contour, a pillow and a matched background of the pattern can be used.

How subspecies of this technology are distinguished:

1. contour,
2. bracketed
3. geometric (trihedral).

To perform the contour technique, in-depth lines are used that run along the main background.

Staple technology uses special notches in the form of staples to create a finish. Using geometric carving the master draws a contour with the help of trihedral pyramids and pegs. Repeated many times in different options the type of cutting allows you to create a variety of relief decors that are slightly recessed into the general background. This technique is characterized by numerous compositions of geometric shapes in the form of rhombuses, triangles, honeycombs, viteyek, etc.

Openwork or through technique

When creating openwork images, the complete removal of wood from the center of the product is used. This drawing has no background. This type of thread technology is called through. It can be simple and openwork. With an openwork design, the decor is made of different heights.

Wood carving tools must be carefully selected. Woodcarving as a kind of arts and crafts has a long history, and has provided humanity with real masterpieces. At home, you can also create works of art, and simply diversify the interior. Although some modern models with an electric drive have appeared (for example, a woodcarving drill), in general, the tool retains traditions and is intended mainly for painstaking manual labor.

Various types of chisels for woodcarving

Wood carving is the processing of wood in order to give it a special shape or make a relief on it. The following main types of such operations can be distinguished:

Principles of using the tool

When performing woodcarving, the following work is carried out: drilling, sawing, cutting and gouging. To create a quality product, it is impossible to do without measuring tools.

In the process of work, there is a need for an auxiliary tool or devices that help fix the workpiece and limit the degree of impact.

The nature of the work and determines the choice necessary tool. Historically, the most the best examples performed with hand tools, but modern trend to the mechanization and automation of labor has not bypassed this area of ​​activity.

There are a number of machine tools, mini-drills (drills), electric jigsaws, grinders, etc. on sale. It is possible to make certain products in general in automatic mode using copy-milling devices (pantograph).

What types of knives are used

One of the primary cutting tools used for are wood carving knives of various designs and purposes. stand out the following types knives:

What chisels are needed at work

Undoubtedly, the main tools handmade are chisels for woodcarving. The most common types of chisels include the following tool:

What tool can you use

In addition to the main considered devices, additional tools are used during the work, allowing to carry out specific work.

Usually, such an additional tool for woodcarving is used:

1. Spoon knives or spoon knives: usually a sharpened ring welded to a steel bar that is inserted into the handle - they are used to remove accumulated sawdust in recesses, as well as for grinding the inside walls of large recesses, for example, when cutting dishes.
2. Chasings and punches: durable metal rods with a specific pattern on the end. Most common when creating the main background.

When carving wood over large areas, various auxiliary tools are also used:

1. For drilling work: gimlets, brace, hand drills.
2. When sawing: hacksaw, hacksaw, jigsaw, two-handed saw.
3. Auxiliary devices: mallet, bracket, miter box, clamps, vise, various clamps, hammer.

The following tool is used for measuring and marking: ruler, square, protractor, yarunok, bevel, plumb line, adjuster, level, caliper, caliper, inside gauge, thickness gauge, compasses, tape measure.

Most people really enjoy working with materials like wood. The best type of occupation will be slotted woodcarving. In general, woodwork is becoming a very popular activity.

Be careful, the work can be dangerous, it requires increased attention and concentration, so this type of needlework cannot be done with children. This is especially true for those children who still do not know how to properly handle sharp and cutting objects. This applies not only to children, but also to adults, do not forget about the observance of safety precautions when working. Therefore, not only hand tools, but electrical appliances can be used in woodcarving.

Basic Tools

Every business has its own tools. So slotted woodcarving is no exception. To process wood, use the following tools:

• Various knives;
• Bit;
• Chisels are round and straight;
• Frazier;
• Jigsaw.

This list can be supplemented by other tools, everything will depend on the difficulty of your work. But for beginners, these tools are enough.

To date, few of the masters use manual labor in big works. To do this, it is best to purchase electrical appliances in specialized stores. These tools include:

• Electric drill;
• Manual frezer;
• Electric jigsaw.

Using these devices, the work will go much faster than usual. And the result of the product will be much better.

In addition to all of the above, a slotted pattern can be made in another way, for example, by burning. How does this method work? The pattern is burned out on the wood with nichrome wire.

True, one of the drawbacks is considered to be a strong and unpleasant smell of burning, and you also have to constantly cool the tool. Then in this case, the work is much slower.

But needlework does not stand still, and there is another newer method of the above method. And this is wood cutting with a laser. When using it, the drawing is 99% accurate. For this method it is necessary to purchase special expensive equipment. It is because of the high cost of the tool that this method as such is rarely used in practice.

Light shelf

Required for manufacturing the following materials and tools:

• Plywood sheets 8 mm and 10 mm thick;
• Drill, screwdriver;
• Nichrome wire;
• grinding machine;
• Glue for wood;
• Varnish for wood.

Step by step instructions for doing the job.

First of all, we make blanks for the walls of the shelf. We cut them out of purchased plywood. The thickness of my plywood is 8 mm, so we cut out four parts, and with the help of glue we make two parts 16 cm thick from them. These will be the walls of the shelf.

Now you need to decide on the pattern. It can be found on the Internet or you can draw it yourself on white paper. We print out the drawings and glue them on the finished side parts of the shelf.

Using a drill, a screwdriver, drill holes. Then we move on to cutting out the pattern. We do it with a jigsaw.

Due to the fact that the wall at the shelf is thick, the work will not happen quickly. Will have to be patient.

As a result, we get this:

Now we turn to the manufacture of brackets. This must be done from plywood with a thickness of 10 millimeters. All actions are repeated as described above.

For the beauty of the joints, a milling cutter was used. It was required in order to cut a blind groove, so that in the future there would be no difficulties with fasteners finished product. To do this, we use cutters with a diameter of 8 millimeters. The thickness of the shelves themselves is also equal to 8 millimeters.

After all the steps performed, we proceed to grinding. We lay out the finished parts on working surface, as the shelf itself will look like.

We disassemble all the details, and begin to cover each of them with varnish. We wait until the parts are completely dry.

The photo shows what happened after painting.

Now we move on to fixing the finished product.

Piggy bank for children

To work, you will need the following tools and materials:

• Sheets of plywood of different thicknesses - 4, 6 and 12 millimeters;
• Tree template;
• Nichrome wire;
• Jigsaw.

Step by step instructions for implementation.

We print out the sketch that is shown below in the photo. We lay it on a sheet of plywood with a thickness of 4 mm and cut it out along the contour with nichrome wire, but if this device is not available, then you can use a jigsaw. Moreover, the rhizomes from the template must be cut.

According to the resulting stencil, we circle with a pencil so that the second tree is slightly larger than the first, we need 3 more such layers.

This is necessary in order to make the piggy bank look more voluminous. From the first part, cut out the top of the tree from the trunk.

On the second tree, we mark with a pencil the place where the money will pass, and cut it out.

The third tree will be solid, nothing needs to be done on it. On the fourth, we make the same place for the passage of money, only from a completely different angle. We do nothing on the 5th tree, but the roots will be additional.

We paint over each of the details with paints. Then we start assembly. The very last tree will be the base, we glue the rest of the details on it, as shown in the photo.

Now let's move on to making the base for the piggy bank.

Saw wood carving is widespread in folk art received in the 19th century. due to the spread of the production of thin factory-made sawboards used for finishing work. The process of sawing carving includes the following operations: preparing the board, applying a template, cutting or drilling holes, rough cutting the thread contour, finishing the contour, working out the relief and cleaning the surface.

Until now, in Russian villages and villages, as well as small provincial towns, you can see old houses with lacy wooden decoration, preserved from the last century. Only separate parts of the house were decorated with openwork sawn carvings: window and door frames, chapels, end boards. Overhead carved details on houses, in addition to aesthetic, had practical value. So, carved boards along the slopes of the roof - prichelina - covered the ends of the slats sticking out from under the roof. Their purpose is to protect the slegs from moisture penetration so that they do not collapse. The same function was performed by end boards, which were nailed to the ends of a log cabin. Window casings covered the joints between the window frame and logs. In northern Russian huts, the junction of two chapels was covered with a patterned towel, and the lower ends of the chapels protruding from under the roof were also decorated with carvings. Such carvings were also used to decorate cornice valances, brackets, attics, fillings in attic windows, backs of chairs, beds, etc.

Sawing carving or sawing is a patterned through wood carving based on a planar through ornament with zoomorphic and plant elements. In case of pinning openwork carving on the planes of entrance gates, gates, etc., such a thread is called a cut-overhead thread, regardless of the method of its fastening.

The wide distribution of sawn carving in folk art is associated with the development of the lumber industry in the 19th century, due to which thinner and cheaper sawboards began to be produced for finishing work. The process of sawing carving includes the following operations: preparing the board, applying a template, cutting or drilling holes, rough cutting the thread contour, finishing the contour, working out the relief and cleaning the surface.

Pine and larch wood has always been used and continues to be used for openwork carving. For elements decorating housing, birch, aspen and linden wood could also be used. Dried boards (as a rule, ¾ vershok (33 mm) thick) were smoothly planed in layers. Templates or stencils created by the craftsmen themselves were used to apply the pattern to the blank. Therefore, it is so difficult to find repeating ornaments in the decor of wooden houses. After drawing the pattern, the blank was fixed on a workbench with a preliminary laying of a tight-fitting board or shield under it. With a large thickness of the workpiece, holes were drilled with a perk drill using a brace. Drilled not immediately through the entire thickness of the part. As soon as the tip of the drill reached the lower mouth of the workpiece, it was turned over and a hole was drilled with on the other hand, which prevented the appearance of chips on the underside of the part.The workpiece was sawn out with a bow saw or hammer along the outer contour.Then, holes were drilled with a brace where the edges of the board coincided with the contours of the opening. in work alternately used different sections of the saw blade. Very steep lines with a small radius of curvature were sawn out of its narrowest part. As the steepness of the line decreased, the middle part of the saw began to work, and if the sawn line was almost straight, then the wide part of the saw, located closer to the handle, was included in the work. A jigsaw was also used to cut the thread contour, leaving a small allowance for further processing. If circular or curvilinear elements are embedded in the pattern of the ornament, then they were either sawn out with a saw only if the radii of curvature allowed. In other cases, they sawed off in black with broken straight lines in order to then give the desired shape with the help of straight, semicircular, sloping and curved chisels and different types skins.

The outline was cut clean with a cutter, straight or semicircular chisels. To make smooth cuts, the chisel was held at an angle to the surface and cut with light sliding cuts. In narrow places, the material was removed with a Bogorodsk knife.

Finished the work by cleaning the threads with rasps or sandpaper, the edges of the ornament were sometimes slightly oval, visually softening the contour.

In our time, sawn house carving continues to be used to decorate rural wooden houses, country houses, gazebos, shady canopies, towers on playgrounds.