The steel buhl saw-frame (Fig. 16) may be very usefully employed for removing many of the superfluous portions of the material in the earliest stages of carving in the round, as in large or small figurini, and for those parts which have to be cut away to leave the outlines or margins between leaves and other ornaments in flat works. In such cases it is to be recommended, for its use not only saves much time, but also the risk of breakages, to which the work is very liable when these portions have to be removed entirely with the carving-tool.

In round carving, the block, more or less roughly marked out on its surfaces to some approach to its ultimate form with thick pencil or crayon lines, may be held on the work-bench by the carver’s screw (Fig. 10), or if that be not convenient, or if it be flat work, it can be held in the vice. A coarse strong buhl saw-blade is employed; this is first fixed in the screw jaw at the further side of the saw-frame; the handle of the latter is then unscrewed until it projects its jaw about half-an-inch, and at the moment the other end of the blade is fixed therein, the two jaws are also made to approach one another by pressing the further side of the saw-frame against the work-bench, with the handle against the workman’s chest; after this, the handle is screwed back again until its jaw returns home to its former position. The back of the saw-blade is towards the back of the saw-frame, and the teeth of the blade should point away from the handle, easily discovered by passing the finger along them, and when the saw is properly strained for use it should ring like a harp string.

In use, the handle of the frame is grasped by all the fingers of the hand, except the forefinger, which is stretched straight out along it in the direction of the saw; the latter is pushed straight forward and withdrawn with moderate pressure, just sufficient to cause it to cut, and is twisted about to follow the directions of the lines or curves of the piece to be removed. During the sawing the outstretched forefinger is an unerring guide for the direction of the cut.

When a piece has to be removed from between others which have to be left, as between the body and the bend of the arm, or between the legs of a figure, a small hole is first drilled through the block and the saw threaded through it before it is strained; and the only necessary precaution throughout in using the saw, is to leave sufficient material everywhere for perfect freedom in the subsequent carving by not cutting anywhere too close.

An entirely different method is followed in cutting out moulds, the pieces to be used for appliquÉ carving, and for the outlines of fretwork or panels pierced with many interstices of which the surface is afterwards to be carved. These works cannot be held fast in the vice or otherwise, not only because they are often thin and liable to fracture, but because, if so held, it is impossible to attain the desired true, easy-flowing outlines required at once without subsequent correction, which can be produced without difficulty when the work is perfectly free.

The professional hand fret-cutter, who produces the best and most elaborate work, such objects as the long, thin, pierced panels to be backed with silk for the fronts of pianofortes, uses a similar, but much deeper, yet light saw-frame made of wood, with the same steel screw-jaws, hung to the ceiling by a cord. He sits astride a bench called “a horse,” which has two tall vertical jaws in front of him, their upper edges lined with brass, or sometimes with cork. The further jaw is fixed to withstand the thrust of the saw, the other is notched below and springs open when left to itself, but is closed by a diagonal strut resting loosely in mortises made in the face of the bench and in that of the movable jaw; the strut is pulled downwards to close the jaw on the work by means of a cord passing from it through a hole in the bench to a treadle beneath the workman’s foot. The surfaces of his work are, therefore, vertical, and the work itself is very lightly held, so that he can twist it about in all directions with the left hand, while he keeps the saw steadily traversing backwards and forwards in the same plane horizontally, with the right.

A simpler support, called a “saw table,” Fig. 7 b, is used, and thoroughly answers every purpose for the smaller class of works which we are considering. This tool consists of an oblong piece of wood, perfectly flat, smooth and polished on its upper surface, at the one end of which there is a slot of about an inch wide; beneath, it has a cross piece of wood to keep the implement steady on the bench or table on which it is placed, and a clamp and screw to fix it there.

The work, first pierced with the holes for threading the saw through all its intended interstices, has the saw placed through one of them, strained as before, and is then laid down, pattern uppermost, on the saw table, upon which it is lightly held and twisted about by the points of all five fingers of the left hand planted vertically upon it; the saw is worked up and down vertically in the slot by the right hand, the handle below the saw table. The aim here is to keep the saw working always in the same place, and to let the curve or line result from the perfectly free movement of the work alone. The saw-blades employed are much finer than those previously referred to; they are tightly strained in the same way as before, but they are placed in the frame so that the teeth now point the reverse way, towards the handle, and the cut, therefore, takes place at the downward stroke.

The saws in ordinary use, such as the brass-backed tenon and dove-tail saws and the key-hole saws of the carpenter, also find constant employment in first roughly shaping and preparing the blocks and panels to be subsequently carved; in their use it is only necessary, as in all sawing upon carved works, to cut just sufficiently wide of the lines marked to ensure that all saw-marks will be removed by the carving tool.