Practical guide of timeless information provides wide range of pointers — from getting started, selecting necessary tools and appropriate woods, to directions for tracing and transferring patterns; oiling, staining, and varnishing; carving in relief, fret-cutting, and other popular techniques. Instructions and 67 designs for creating monograms, inscriptions, florals, vines, animal forms, more.

Table of Contents for Victorian Fret-Work and Wood Carving: Patterns and Instructions

Part I.--Fred-Cutting
I. The Attractions of Fret-Cutting; Practical Value of the Work
II. Things to be Made; First Cost of Tools
III. A Work for Odd Moments; Early Attempts must not be too Ambitious; Good Handiwork not to be Wasted on Poor Designs; Leading Lines and Curves; Geometrical Forms; Running Patterns; The Carving of Stems; Repetition of Similar Parts; Tools Required; Hints on Setting to Work; Grains of Woods; System in Working; Buhl-work; Fret-cutting on Pianofortes
IV. Tracing of Patterns; Transferring to Wood; Warping: its Cause and Remedy; Green or Unseasoned Wood; Advantage of a Knowledge of Drawing; Enlarging or Reducing Designs; Squaring off
V. Use of Sandpaper; The File; Repairing Damages; Oiling, Staining, and Varnishing; Mounting of Work
VI. Remarks on Plates; Finger-plates; Brackets; Paper-knives; Frames; Table-easels; Boxes and Caskets
Part II.--Carving in Relief
I. Its Difficulty Compared to Fret-cutting; Watching Practical Carver at Work; Various Kinds of Wood Employed; Oak; Walnut; Lime-wood; The Carvings of Grinling Gibbons; Pear-tree; Boxwood; Sycamore; Chestnut; Ash-pine; Birch; Yew; Holly; Foreign Woods; Mahogany; Rosewood; Cedar; Ebony; Sandal-wood; Indian and Chinese Carvings; Lignum-vitæ; Satin-wood; Beauty of Grain not always an Advantage; Bird's-eye Maple; Great Brilliancy or Strength of Colour a Drawback; High Polish objectionable
II. Tools and Materials Required for Wood-carving; A few Tools to be mastered at a time; Sharpening and Preservation of Tools; Sandpaper: its Use and Abuse; Tool-marks on Work; Tools arranged for Work; Clean Cutting; System in Working; Blocking out; Bosting; Grounding; Under-cutting; Building up Large Carvings; Modelling a First Sketch in Wax or Clay
III.-IV. Description of Plates
Part III.--Design
I. Schools of Art; Sense of Fitness; Examples of it in the Illustrations; Paper-knives; Caskets; Brackets; Easels; Constructive Features to be boldly acknowledged; Naturalism and Conventionalism
II. Settingn out a Design; Leading Lines; The Filling in of Details; Symmetrical Treatments; Animal Forms Introduced; Influence of Heraldry; Inscriptions; Good Forms of Characters to be Employed; Setting out Inscriptions
III. Styles of Ornament; Study of Nature; Variation of Form in the Leaves of some Plants; Leaves of Fan and Feather Types; Form of First Leaves of some Plants; Influence of Light on the Growth of Plants

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