Mountains

I carved the design into the shibuishi and scrubbed it with pumice powder. Next is to bring out the colour of the metal, which will also accentuate the lines, by chemically oxidising it.

Moon over water shibuishi

I was all set to start carving the moon over water theme when I took a closer look at the form and marks from hammering on the plate.




It seems much more suggestive of a landscape than a seascape and as much as I tried to draw the original theme on, it didn't work. Therefore I changed tack and have decided on a mountain landscape in katakiri-bori.

Sharp learning curve

I bought a diamond hone to speed up the process of keeping the tagane sharp. I was previously using natural slate with a much finer grit. It was working but taking ages to get a good edge. Ford hallam and others use diamond plates to cut down on sharpening time.



The diamond hone is really aggressive and I found that I had been sharpening wrong before, the smoother hone had just been more forgiving. Trying to correct my angles meant I honed away much of my katakiri-bori chisel. I actually had to go back to the grinder to correct the taper.



You can see the multiple angles.

This has made me focus on getting good flat angles at the 60 degree needed, when I get that correct, the chisel glides through the material.