Walnut Woe's

Post by **dighsx** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:32 pm

I’ve got a new project in the pipeline that I’m a little freaked out about. My wifes family wants a PhotoVCarving and some text next to it, which isn’t too hard to setup. What’s got me worried is they want me to cut it in a slab of walnut that’s 150+ years old. I guess it’s been in their family for generations and now they want to do something with it. The walnut came from some great great great grandfathers farm. It’s a really nice looking piece of wood about 22x24inches and about 1.5 inches thick. I doubt you could even get a piece like this today.

I think I’m going to cut the job in something else first to make sure it works ok. Also I’m a little worried about how the wood will take finish. In theory it should do fine but anyone ever done work with really old wood.

Someone tell me I’m not crazy for saying I’d do this….

Once they get me the photo and text I’ll post up the layout.

Post by **tmerrill** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:06 pm

Hi Jay,

I had a similar situation last fall with a piece of cherry. It wasn't old, but a beautiful piece of wood and I didn't want to ruin it. It was a memorial plaque for a relative who passed away.

Here are some thoughts:

Definitely run a practice cut in hardwood, even if you just glue up some scraps you may have hanging around the shop. I don't hesitate to use mdf or foam to preview V Carve type projects but found with PhotoVCarve you have to use a similar material to get a good preview of the results.

Mount the walnut on your machine and surface it with a mortising type bit then sand it smooth without removing it. This should give you a good paralllel surface across the blank. If mounting is an issue, I have had good success by screwing scrap wood to the spoilboard and using wedges. Can supply more details if needed.

Cut the design first using PhotoVCarve. The thought being here that is something goes wrong, with the 1.5 inch thickness you could resurface and try again. As for using PhotoVCarve, I sometimes do it in two passes, the first about 2/3 to 3/4 of the final depth and the last pass at the final depth. I do this by adjusting Z Zero. Doubles the machining time, but seems to produce a nicer cut in hardwood.

Use the Zinsser Seal Coat Shellac you bought to prepare it for finishing. I normally apply 2-4 coats cut to 1 lb., followed by 1-? coats at 2 lb. straight from the can. With the age of the walnut it has to potential to be very dry and it will soak up the shellac quickly.

Hope this helps. Keep us posted and show some pictures when the time comes.

Tim

Post by **kevinl** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 12:56 am

Not trying to steal your thread dig but I was playin with photo v-carve today and have a quick question. I was trying to design a photo with some text and cant quite figure out how to do it. I cant figure out how to size the material I am going to use. In the size material tap I only see an option to size the image. I also assume that once you have the image the way you want it you then go to v-carve pro to put the text in??

Good luck with your familys peice of walnut....I havent really tried the photo v-carve yet but hoping to get to it soon.

Post by **Tony Mac** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:11 am

Hi Kevin,

Take a look at the video on how to combine PhotoVCarve and VCarve Pro designs.

http://www.vectric.com/vcarve-download/ ... orial7.exe
http://www.vectric.com/vcarve-download/ ... _Files.pdf

This should hopefully point you in the right direction.

Tony

Post by **CRFultz** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:46 am

kevinl wrote:Not trying to steal your thread dig but I was playin with photo v-carve today and have a quick question. I was trying to design a photo with some text and cant quite figure out how to do it. I cant figure out how to size the material I am going to use. In the size material tap I only see an option to size the image. I also assume that once you have the image the way you want it you then go to v-carve pro to put the text in??

Good luck with your familys peice of walnut....I havent really tried the photo v-carve yet but hoping to get to it soon.

Hey Kevin,
I start out my PVC layout in Photoshop...any photo editing software will work. I resize the photo to smaller then my piece of wood that I will be cutting on.
I also clean up the background while I'm at it. A solid white background for cutting wood works for me.
When you import the image into PhotoVCarve it will be the same size as when you resized it in the image software.
Once you get the PVC file into VCP then you can add text around the photo.
Just remember to size the photo smaler...you can always cut away the perimeter if need be.

Jay good luck on the walnut....I too have some treasured wood that I'm afraid to mess with.
I have a slab of 2" thick spalted maple that I can't bring myself to cut....I've had it for many years tucked away in my closet.
Someday I will find that special project and use it...Hopefully its still there and not a pile of dust.

Chuck

Post by **dmidkiff** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:55 pm

Jay,

This is my first post on this forum. This project sounds fun, but I thought that I should mention that the darker wood may not give the best results. I have not used the PhotoVCarve but have cut a few photos in wood and the light wood gave me the best results. Maple, Birch and Magnolia with not much grain pattern. Oak and Ash usually have too much grain.

Just didn't want you to mess up that nice old walnut without a warning to try on a different piece. And if you do use the walnut, all is not lost as suggested in another post you could still sand it smooth again. Please post pic of the end result, I would like to see it.

Have Fun with it
Dave

Post by **dighsx** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 1:11 pm

Thanks Dave, that was one of the other things I'm worried about. I'm going to buy some walnut and test it out. I was thinking about trying to seal the walnut and then cut the PhotoVCarve picture and then either rub black paint or stain into the cut areas. But I'm not sure this will give me enough contrast.

I'll let you know how things go and post some pictures of my tests when I get them done.

Thanks again.

Post by **Burchtree** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 1:23 pm

Hi Jay
I thinking you are going to have to Invert light / dark areas and paint or stain the cuts white.
Dan

Post by **CRFultz** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 1:43 pm

Hey Jay,
You could cut the image in maple and inlay it into the walnut....the two contrasting colors would look great.

Chuck

Post by **dmidkiff** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 2:21 am

Chuck.

Great Idea !!!

Dave

Post by **dighsx** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 11:28 am

Chuck that is a good idea, with only one problem. I talked to my father in-law about (the owner of the walnut) and he's not to keen on using anything other than the walnut. I think I'm going to have to do a bunch of samples for him and then let him pick what he wants to do.