to your tools. Take some simple design, and having drawn it or transferred it on the wood, go over the edges with the tracing wheel, which has sharp points like the rowel of a spur. If you have no wheel, go over it with a sharp bodkin, or a piece of sharp new knitting needle, set into a wooden handle, pricking out the outline by this means. Now take your parting tool and cut away a light groove, keeping just outside the dotted line already pricked out. Work slowly and lightly, as, if you attempt to hurry, the result will probably be that you will dig your tool in too deep, and tear up the wood in a very ragged and ugly manner, or perhaps you may break the edge of your tool. Make your cuts light and short at first. You can deepen this outline groove by going over it repeatedly with the same tool.
Instead of running the outline groove with the parting tool, you can "stab out" the same line with a tool exactly corresponding to the outline of the design. Hold it so that while close to the line the cut will slope a little outwards, and with a slight blow with a mallet or with a push of your hand cut into the wood. Repeat this process till the whole design is outlined.
The next step is to cut away the ground, leaving the design in relief. With a flat gouge or chisel cut this gradually away, beginning a little way from the outline and cutting towards it, and afterwards carefully cutting away the centre. Make it as smooth as you can, finishing it up, if desired, with a curved file. The edges of the design may be gently rounded off with a rasp and sand paper. Small polishers, to be used in getting into corners, etc., can be made by taking sticks of wood, shaping their ends to suit the difficult spots, dipping them into glue and then into sand. Blow all the sand out of your work, and indent the background with the stiletto, or punches used for the purpose. The more thoroughly this is done, the better the design will look.
