Lotz Interests: Carving Duplication

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Wood Carving and Wood Doll Making
~ Carving Duplication ~
as it relates to wood dolls

by Jean D. Lotz
A Non-Commercial, Educational Resource Copyright © 1996+ Jean D. Lotz Last Updated: 11/25/97

All images are included with the permission of the copyright owners

I do not currently make any manufactured wood doll parts. I continue to use the old fashioned one at a time methods of hand-carving!

How & why carvers copy their work?

Cast it - a mold is made from the originals and wood/resin is poured to make the duplicates. Wood/resin is plastic extended with some cellulose filler material. This material makes it more wood-like - the resultant copies are no longer wood. These must be considered wood/resin objects.
Carve the same thing over and over manually and making every effort to make each similar - totally unrealistic.
"duplicate" the object with a tracing wood carving machine

buy a duplicating carver yourself
work with a sub-contractor to duplicate your work

Degree of detail:

Make copies about 90% complete:
The resultant rough-out can be at leat 90% complete after using a small scale duplicator, or job-out the duplication to a multi-spindle duplication manufacturing plant. This form of duplication is often passed of to the public as "hand carved" or "hand crafted". The use of these terms for this type of manufactured wood products is considered just ADVERTISING HYPE by carvers who create each piece completely by hand.

Yet, some manufacturers can still legitamately say their products are "hand carved" because the rough outs are finish carved completely by hand. Robert Raikes claims that he has 2 rooms of carvers finish carving each rough out taken from the machines. Famous Italian manufacturers like Anri and Dolfi also have accomplished carvers carving each object with traditional hand tools after the rough outs are removed from the machines.

This is an on-going argument in the wood working communtiy. Just remember, if you see an object as a part of large edition then you can guarantee that some duplicating machine has been used to rough out the parts.

Make quick multiple rough outs (less than 50% complete):
This roughly shapes the wood by getting rid of some of the waste wood quickly. With only 50% of the wood removed, there is a lot of room for creativity for the carver. This is an excellent way to provide working material for a carving class. It is also excellent if you want to make different characters from the same basic pattern.

Misc. comments on duplicator use by carvers on the web:

Great tool to increase production
When one is trying to make a living carving, you take every opportunity to create a cash flow, besides if you have made something that people really like why not make it again. from Bob Lauder ... FOGO FOLK ART

Focus on higher volume or higher end market for one of a kind work
A carver can aim at the lower cost higher volume market where duplication offers the individual the chance to copy their original concepts and ideas and produce a fairly large volume. Or he can concentrate on highly detailed carvings with original, one-of-a-kind appeal to the customer and, of course, much higher price.

Against robotic duplication
I'm not above using a chainsaw, power carver, belt sander, grinder, or anything else that helps, but the common factor is that I'm still using my hands, eyes, and mind to guide the tool. I kind of draw the line when something is being formed without me watching it.

Use a duplicator for rough outs
A lot of folks who make a living carving, or at least have a significant second income from it, offer a common word of advise from practically all of them, on the use of a duplicator. They told me that the only way they could keep enough carvings done (fast enough) to make anything off of them was through the use of a duplicator to make rough outs. They weren't talking about making the 90% finished machine jobs that you see passed off as original handmade, just taking off the large waste wood portions and leaving a 30 to 40% completed rough-out that could be changed up as the inspiration suited. They also each and every one told me that they made the original themselves, straight from the log or block of wood, so they aren't duplicating anyone else's work. The duplicator was simply used as a sort of production tool to help with some of the heavy wood removal.

What I had in mind though was making a very rough, very generic blank, and then changing it into many different "people." I saw a very rough Civil War soldier blank that was transformed into seven completely different carvings without having to remove the huge amounts of purely waste wood. from Mike Wells.

Non-wood originals duplicated into wood

You must seriously ask yourself if your proto-type is well designed, and marketable. If it is not, then you will spend a lot of money duplicating your work into a lot of wooden objects that you'll have to keep. Not everything warrants duplication - some friendly art critics might be able to help you with that decision.

In my opinion, the best duplicated wood products are duplicated from carved wooden originals, or from sculptors who are trained in and are totally aware of the working qualities of wood. Even when the duplication is into wood resin, the resultant duplication looks more like wood if it was duplicated from a handcarved wooden original. For example: Harald Naber carves his original Naber Kids from select pieces of very old oak to insure he will have some distinctive grain showing in his resin copies of the oak originals. Harald knows wood and what wood should look like. He stains his wood resin parts to further his successful "real wood" illusion. Unfortunately, they are often mistaken for real wood dolls by his customers.

Wood dolls are often manufactured from non-wood originals. The designer doesn't always directly work in the medium they are known or famous for. The designer might draw her ideas, perhaps in 3-D and the sculptor (sometimes the same person) would then sculpt the proto-type in what ever medium he is accustomed to. This proto-type is cleaned up, molded, cast, and then wood parts are produced on multi-spindle industrial duplicators from these castings. Large editions are often manufactured in this way using very durable metal castings.

When I first read that many of the more famous and productive German wood doll artists (and some in the US) actually never carve wood - they design and sculpt in clay, I was insulted, angry, and felt cheated. But after thinking about it a while, what is the difference if you like the end results? This is a manufacturing process. This is how Barbie dolls are made. They are not sculpted in plastic, porcelain, and vinyl. This is the same type of process a designer of crystal gift objects might go through - he would not sculpt the original in crystal. But the designer would have to keep the final material qualities in mind throughout the design process.

Duplication Process:

If you duplicate your parts you should decide to what degree of carving is done by machinery and what wood is to be used and who will do the duplicating.

Types of duplicators:

single cutter and limited 2-D movement (for sign carving)
single cutter and 3-D movement (optional spindle mount)
multiple 3-D or 2-D cutters
totally automated machine CNC robot - in either x+y or x+y+z configurations

Duplicators are essentially like key duplicators that you might have watched in operation at hardware stores. The cutter(s) are moved in response to any movement of the tracing stylus. There are 2-D, 3-D, and spindle duplicators. The 2-D versions are used by wood sign cutters and are of no use for carving. These machines come in single and multiple spindles options. A single spindle (cutter) duplicator is fairly inexpensive and they increase in price rapidly for each new cutter. Only one duplicate can be made for each tracing with a single spindle (cutter), but an extra duplicate can be made with each additional spindle (cutter) with the same tracing effort. The original and duplicates are mounted on rotating plates so the sculptures stand on the plates.

A Spindle mount option:
With a "spindle carving" option these machines can be set to work horizontally where the original and duplicates are mounted on end points like a carving lathe. The horizontal position allows you to duplicate any kind of long carving and stacked multiples. Stacked multiples are several carvings mounted one on top of the other like a totem pole. This is referred to as stacking up a set (4-up, 6-up, 8-up ...). This totem pole is carved and then sawed off to separate the individual objects. So if you have 16 spindle cutters carving something set 6-up, then your efforts would produce 96 individual objects with minimal extra work.

A Totally Automated CNC Duplicator:
This is an extremely expensive piece of computer driven equipment. Once the data is collected into the computer, it then works with minimal human intervention. An image is digitized, a 3-D wire frame is interpolated via software, and software then drives a robotic arm carving some substance -- THIS IS NO LONGER CARVING AND DEFINITELY NO LONGER ART!

The 3D data is fed into a computer and formatted in such a way so that the computer can then direct a computer driven router to cut material into a physical representation of the computer data. The 3D computer data can be generated by computer CAD programs; a 3D object can be photographed in several angles; or traced with manual manual; or digitized with a laser.

It is no longer science fiction to believe someone can take a 2-D drawing or photograph and interpolate 3-D data with software. Then a carving can be made by outputting this 3-D data to a robotics carving arm. Is it carved? Yes. Is it expensive? VERY! Is it art? NO!

Unfortunately, there is a great risk of unethical use of computer robotic machinery especially as CNC equipment is coming down in price for a high-end home hobby tool. Copying anyone else's work by the use of CNC machines or other duplicators is wrong - criminally wrong!

But if used in an ethical manner, then CNC (computer numeric controlled) machines have their part in the production of artwork. For example: An artist might envision a work carved in stone but doesn't have the skill or means to carve such an item. There are now companies offering an artist the option of submitting their original 3D study (in clay, wax, or etc.) for duplication in any size in an assortment of stone. Viewed in this way and under these conditions then submitting a sculpture to one of these CNC duplicators is no different then an artist submitting a work to a foundery to be cast into bronze.

Using A Duplicating Service:

If you decide to duplicate your work into wood, you must decide to what degree do you need your wood parts finished by your sub-contractor. It is always a good idea to have a legally binding contract with your duplicator which states that you maintain all copyrights of the originals and the resultant products and derivative works. This is especially true if you are duplicating from a non wood original. The resultant product can be considered a "derivative" work of art since it was a duplication into a different media. Check with the US copyright office.

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