Carving oak box parts

[I have 2 classes left this year, a “carving-only” class coming up later this month, then in October a carved box class. The August class is full, but there’s room in the October one. That class is a two-fer, the first 3 days are carving, first some practice, then the real thing. After that, it’s building the box with its till and wooden hinges. Details here:https://www.petergalbert.com/schedule/2020/7/13/make-a-chair-from-a-tree-with-peter-follansbee-8brcj-7b62n-xafjp-mglkm-lrd5m-swyzh

next year, we’ll fix that link so it actually reads “carved box”…]

Thinking about these carving classes coming up, I dug out some oak I split & planed in May and started in on some carved boxes. The photo below is 2 different boxes - the large panel at the bottom of the photo is a “typical” sized box, the other 2 boards are ready to cut into 4 pieces for a small box. I carved these today and shot some photos of the larger one.

This pattern is loosely based on one single small photo in Victor Chinnery’s book Oak Furniture: The British Tradition. I’ve carved several versions of it, none of them copying the English box verbatim, but following much of its format. This board is 7 1/2” high - so once I struck the top & bottom margins, I knew I had 6 1/2” to work in. I dug out some paper and a compass to work out some spacing. The pattern repeats so much there’s only a small section that you need to map out - in this case a 3 1/4” square.

Once I struck those arcs, I dropped vertical lines through the middles/between the arcs then a diagonal line left & right. Those 90° and 45° lines are targets for a pointed “leaf” struck with a narrow gouge left and right of each line. Then a large curved gouge defines the spaces between the diagonal and top leaves. Same gouge outlines the droopy bit from the diagonal line down to the middle horizontal line.

I traced a couple different gouges to get the shapes I wanted. There’s a pair of rounded shapes that almost form a heart shape - the point of which hits the diagonal line. I wasn’t sure about the size of the gouge I started with to define those shapes. Tracing the tools on paper is one thing, but the V-tool outline is wider than a compass-penciled line. So I quickly struck an outline with the V-tool on a piece of white pine scrap and sure enough, those shapes needed a narrower gouge.

That’s all I needed to know. From there I could go to the oak board and not have to guess about anything. So the first step is all the V-tool work to outline the arcs.

Then the leaves around those 90s and 45s. You want those to hit the marks, then what falls between them has some leeway.

I made a mark on each diagonal line to serve as the tip where those two rounded shapes touch. This made the pattern all the more consistent.