More than you ever wanted to know about stippling.
I went through my archives of an airgun forrum and found this. The "*" seperate different posts:
I have seen a lot of post over time asking about stippling. Now this is not a "holy grail" of Stippling or even close, but hopefully it will help those who have considered trying it but just didn't feel they could do it, or just needed a few guidelines to give them the condidence to try it.
First, you should play around a bit with some scrap wood to get a feel for it. But when you do, try and get a small piece of low quality Walnut so that what you learn will be close to the results and the "feel" of the same wood as what you will actually be doing it on. For example a soft open piece of Pine will not react the same way as a good tight grained piece of Walnut.
Now this is how I go about it, and others may have the same results or better using a different method, and or tools but this is what works for me.
The tool I use is a RotoZip with flex shaft, and small diamond burrs. A small set is shown below. I run the tool at 15,000 rpm, it is a variable and this is the slowest speed, if you increase the speed too much you wind up burning the wood. Of course any good rotary tool will work, such as the Dremel, or the Black and Decker rotary tool.
There are several reasons for my use of the diamond burr over a Carbide burr. First unlike a carbide burr which must have cutting teeth to work, the diamond burr is in my opinion much more controllable. It also by it's nature an abrasive, so in addition to creating the pattern, it in effect "sands" the pattern as you go. The benefit of this in my opinion is that one it does not pull up or separate the grain as a cutter bit would and it also will make the grain show through when finishing with oil.
You really don't have to spend a bunch on these, and they are available at the discount tool stores like Cummings, or Harbor Freight. Now if I were to being doing a lot of metal work I would probably opt for a high quality set, but for woodworking even the "bargain" sets will do the job nicely.
For creating the outline I use the last tool in the set at position #20. It will create a groove, either straight or curved around the parmeter of the area you are going to stipple. You must have a steady hand and go slow and careful. One of the reasons for the use of the flex shaft is to allow doing the more difficult areas with out danger of the larger head of the main tool from touching the wood and marring it. I freehand the lines onto the wood, but if you would feel more comfortable with it, a pattern pre made and wrapped onto the wood and traced would work as well. It is an extra step that I don't do, and if you put your original lines down light, and get it wrong it is an easy task to simply erase it and redraw.
This next picture is an almost completed section where your thumb will lay while shooting, the only thing left to do is straighten and clean up the edge lines a little more. Three sizes of the ball burr were used to get into the progressviely smaller point of this area.
Below is the opposite side, showing the progression of the main area stippling. As you can see Stippling is really a random pattern, so I guess the best way to describe doing it is to just lightly plunge the tool helter skelter until you have most of the original surface gone.
As you progress with the Stippling you simply place the tool in areas that need a little more attention. Stippling is very forgiving in the main areas, and as you pratice on a throw away piece you will quickly learn your own method of getting the random yet even look. The real finesse comes into play at the borders, here you must be very careful.
There are tons of methods for holding/clamping something, but for Stippling I like a lot of tactile feedback so I sit cross-legged on the floor with the piece laying on my lap and with both elbows on my knees, and firmly grasp the tool with both hands with the edges of my palms on the workpiece, to me this gives the best control of the tool, to as best as possible prevent skipping and skittering. It also allows me to turn the piece easily and quickly.
As you can see I chose to "freehand" the Stippling at the bottom of the grip close to the Ebony first and do the outline last, this is a bit of an experiment, but I think that it may result in a cleaner line, and keep the Stippling with a more even apperance close to the outline....I will soon find out.
So get yourself some scrap Walnut and give it a whirl, it is for the most part not all that difficult, and the feel of the stock with the added grip is worth the effort in addition to giving that ho hum stock a bit of a custom look.
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Stippling was done with an engraver with a blunt nail at the tip. I drew the pattern border on with a pencil, cut the borders with my pocket knife (an AirSOG) then diggydigged everything inbetween.
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Brownells, or someone similar, may have a stippling hammer that you can purchase. It reminds you of an upholsterers hammer for driving in the decorative brass tacks, but instead of having a flat hammer surface, it looks as if that surface has been deeply checkered.
To apply, start with a sample piece of wood and start tapping, gradually getting heavier until the desired depth or texture is arrived at. It is very simple to do and not as stressful as checkering. You may even be able to make your own stippling hammer from round bar stock and a handle.
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For faster process, tape a few nails together either as a bunch or a row. After a few practice sessions, you will know how many nails work best.
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An engraver. You can buy one for just a few bucks. It has a variable speed, therefore you can vary the pattern of the stippling. It's fast, too. Watch the borders. I usually go on the borders first with the engraver at high speed, then the insides at low speed.
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As I remember, the usual recomendation was a dulled nail as the stippling tool and a bare hammer handle as the striker. The size of the nail and how hard you hit it determines the size of the stipple.
One person took the nail and split it into a cross (don't ask me how) so he got 4 stipples with one strike.
Using an engraver was mentioned but the manual method was supposed to be better.
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As promised yesterday, here is a breif run down of one way I do stippling. The top pict are some of the cutters I use in conjunction with a dremel flex shaft. They are carbide double cut cutters, which basically means they have two sets of cutting surfaces rather than the single directional ones on most dremel bits.
The cutter on the far left is a diamond coated burr and is used on softer woods. It helps to limit the amount of fuzzing the wood may produce while being cut. The cutters can be purchased from Grizzly Industrial (
www.grizzly.com). If working on a nice hard piece of walnut, I use the double cut bits. I lay out the pattern, and then usually start in a corner.
The piece pictured is a cut off from the side of one of the stocks I am working on. I tested the cutter on this piece so I would know what to expect when going in for the real deal. At medium speed touch the cutter to the wood. Let the cutter do the work using light pressure. Touch the wood again right next to the first mark, so that the diameter of the cutter is just touching or slightly overlapping the edge of the first cut. Dot, Dot, Dot, and so on till the space starts filling up. The cutter should be used so that it's rotation is aligned roughly with the direction of the grain. Changing direction in the orientation of the cutter can cause light to be reflected off the stippling in a little different manner, so try to be consistant. Once a space has started filling up, look for high spots, or areas where the pattern has opened up a little , and hit em again till you have a uniform looking fill.
Another way to produce a good feeling pattern is to work at slow speed, and draw little figure 8's. just keep going around and around moving the bit about as far as the cutter is wide, and drawing figure 8's till the space fills up. Don't be affraid to experiment a little, just do it on scrap wood! Start out shallow, and add depth as you go along. You can always go deeper, whereas you can't really make a cut piece any shallower once cut...
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If you have an electric engraver you can modify the tip or make a custom one.
It needs to be less sharp, slightly rounded. Sharper will go deeper.
Practice on scrap wood, close to same density as stock wood, for practice.
I can't comment on a technique as each creates a different pattern in wood. Just start buzzing and pressing. Try pressing in small circles or just pinpointing.
Another method (my favorite) is using a dremel tool with 1/8" round-tipped carbide burr.
I bought the flexshaft attachment for better control.
Make small figure-8 cuts in the wood and connect them together.
Size of Figure-8 determines size of stipple. Try making raised centers 1/8" to 3/16" for starters.
Keep tool vertical and keep moving slowly to avoid grabbing and gouging wood.
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I've had great luck stippling with an electric engraver. I removed the pointy carbide bit and replaced it with a rounded off finish nail. Just draw tiny overlapping circles and figure-eights. Really quite fast and simple. Its always best to pactice on some scrap, preferably the same type of wood, or at least comparable hardness, 'til you get a feel for it.
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http://www.blueline-studios.com/kuengairguns.com/workshop.html
Stippling and stock making.
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It was done with a $15 Craftsman electric security engraver with the OE sharp pointed tip. The objective was to copy the factory stock as faithfully as possible. The engraver is a variable power high speed impact tool.
It is very easy and accurate to control. Unlike with the Dremmel technique, the wood is hammered and compressed, not removed, other than in the cut the borders.
The next technique on this 77/97 FT Elite/Trophy pattern stock, is done with the engraver tip rounded off. This produces more of a leather grained pattern that still feels great on the hands but doesn't hide the wood grain.
The borders on both techniques are first layed out on the completely finished stock with a very soft white pencil and then cut with a riffling file, checkering tool and/or border cutters.
