How to tool Celtic knots (and Viking knots).

Step by step instructions starting with how to use your swivel knife to the final touches with a modeling spoon.

Swivel Knife use and Celtic tooling. By Tony Allen Bernier.
Blog article sponsored by The Leather Crafters and Saddlers Journal.

Grab a piece of cased leather, trace your pattern, and lets get started. An 8oz to 10oz leather works great for learning these techniques.

Whenever possible cut parallel lines by starting with the line closer to you first. This way you can clearly see the line your trying to match without blocking it with the knife and your hand (A).

When cutting up to a line that hasn’t been cut yet, make sure to stop the cut short (B).

After you cut the other lines (C) you may then meet those cuts up. That way if you’re off the line a little when cutting you wont end up overlapping the cuts by accident.

Start your next cut by beginning in the cut of the previous ones (D).

A helpful tip to get your flow continuing from the opposite side nicely is to gently place your swivel knife blade in the cut right where the line should start, make a light mark and check your placement (E).

Then place your blade in that mark once you know it’s lined up and continue to make your cut.

Bevel across each section where one element goes underneath another (F).

I prefer a small beveller. I find I have more control. You don’t want to bevel as deep as you can just yet. Only bevel enough to clearly separate the elements. That way when you go to do the background you’ll have plenty of depth left to work with.

After going over all the overlapping elements there will be a sharp halo (A). Grab a large figure beveller or a modeling spoon and even out the halos so that the knotwork appears to flow under and over smoothly (B).

By blending out the sharp bevel it has more realistic depth instead of a sharp bevel only suggesting the form. Remember not to bevel too deep, you need to save some depth for the background.

Now bevel around all the elements and start backgrounding. But before you background, it can be helpful to knock down the halo around everything a bit so you don’t have to fight such a steep incline with your backgrounder.

Use your textured backgrounder to go around the parameter of all the knotwork (C). Stay close to the edge.

The inside corners only take two taps (D) and (E).

Then a couple more to fill in the space in the center that was missed.

Use a large backgrounder with the same texture to blend the pattern out. Get it right up close to the line (F).

As you go turn clockwise and counter-clockwise randomly, and also at a random amount. Anywhere from a quarter to a half turn seems to work pretty good. This keeps the pattern from repeating. Randomness is the key. Unless of course your using something with a pattern meant to repeat.

Next blend the texture out going lighter with the hits (G). It can also be helpful to gently round the square corners of the tooling with a modeling spoon. This brings the piece into more depth instead of the elements having a flat appearance.

The video I did on this subject talks a lot about the techniques used to clean it up with a modeling spoon.

It should look something like this (H).

Thanks for reading. There’s also a video covering the same subject here.