I still have a little bit of clearing to do on my little Year of the Horse print but I saw I had one small defect that was going to need a little repair. So before I quit for the day I shaved off a small piece of the surface wood from a corner of my boxwood block that wasn't going to be needed and trimmed it into a tiny, flat wedge shape.
I then enlarged the lost part of my line a little bit (cutting either end to give me a clean edge) and then carefully set a drop of strong wood glue into the defect (but not on the wood that will be the printing surface).
I carefully tucked into the defect the wedge, easing it into place with the end of a toothpick and then held it down with a flat piece of wood to dry.
The next day I very gently cut it to match the previous line and then shaved the surface flush with the line using a flat chisel.
This is ready to go.
Unfortunately I did see ANOTHER small loss in another spot that might be too noticeable but I might wait to patch that until after I pull some proofs. Once I start carving the color blocks they'll be time to let the keyblock dry enough to do another repair.
Good save...The repair looks great! I only wish there was a way to do this with lino.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Elizabeth. This is pretty small (4"x6" block) and the grain was running vertically and there was a tiny split that ran into this end and the piece that fell out was only about 1-2mm wide but since it was a straight line at the bottom of the image it would have been VERY noticeable. So I enlarged it (to make fixing it easier) with a small piece of wood.
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