Introduction To Bone Carving
Author: Brian Boyle Date Posted:27 April 2015
First you soak the bone in warm water for about 2-3 hours, the meat that is still attached to the bone will get soft and it will be much easier to scrape off. Also remove the marrow from the centre with a knife.
After the scraping you leave the bone in water with a bit of bleach and washing powder for another 20 minutes. This will get rid of the oils... If you want the bone whiter, just leave it a bit longer...
Again, scrape the bone and use a bottle brush to clean the inside of the bone.
Then the bone will be left to dry. You can leave the bone in the sun to dry if you wish. The best way to dry the bone is to leave the bone in upright position, so any oils that are still in the bone will go down. Oils left in the bone will give a change of colour.
Once the bone is prepared you can use a machine to cut out the shape in 'rough'.
To get the shape as in your design, you can use a small jeweller’s saw... It takes a bit of practice, but the speed will go up...
Then you use sandpaper to create the exact shape you want and to get rid of edges you do not want.
For the 'finishing' touch, you will need to polish the bone, or better, you need to buff your carving.
Buffing with white rouge will give a really good finish.
This is a very basic introduction – we recommend doing a bone carving course or purchasing some bone carving books to get a better grounding