Clearing the Block

Carving the actual pattern is always fun and you can get to that zone where time doesn't exist anymore and you are one with the wood.  Awakening from this trance and having to face the boring and repetitious part of clearing away whatever you don't want to print can be absolutely brutal.  I wonder if it could be fatal to an older, arthritic person?  (Maybe we don't want to know the answer to that question.) On this block there is quite a bit of clearing away of unwanted wood and it is a rather hard wood (cherry) so it could be a daunting task, however - not in this case because it is Foredom to the rescue.  Foredom is a power tool much like a Dremel on steroids.  It has a flexible cable and interchangeable bits.  One cable is for etching, engraving, etc. and is what I used on the copper piece (see previous posts) and the other cable is for more like a chisel.  The clearing requires the latter.  You can see the tool head next to the block -

This was cleared in about 1/4 of the time it would have taken me to do it with the regular chisel (sitting next to the power head in this photo) and my hand would have ached for hours.  Not to mention how it would have felt during the process.  Using the Foredom I can hold it so that I am pushing from the shoulder in one continuous motion using both hands on the tool.  The blade only cuts back and forth when pressure is applied.  It is a really cool little toy!

There are no registration marks on this block, yet, because I really have no idea, or rather I have several ideas, of how to do this and will figure that out when I get to it...

Next - there is some computer work to get the drawing for the center image where I want it and then transferred to another block.