Cutting Diapers. There are some patterns which are very easily cut with a single tool, as, for instance, squares, diamonds, and triangles. For these a firmer or chisel is sufficient. The reader will observe that one square, etc., is removed alternately, and another left. In designing or selecting these, or any diapers, care must be taken to choose such as fit together exactly. But any figures of this kind, whatever they are, are well adapted for grounds.
A more advanced style of diaper-work is made by cutting lines with the parting-tool or smallest gouge, unless, indeed, you are expert enough to do it with a chisel or firmer.
Fig. 50.
A single Diaper repeated.
This was the commonest kind of diapering on caskets in the Middle Ages. A very pretty effect was often produced by filling these lines with dark brown or black paint. In any case, when oiled, or as they grew old, and dust and oil or moisture worked into them, they became dark. It has already been said that any kind of mere line-work can be executed on a smooth wooden surface by means of a V tool, or generally by a small gouge. It may also be effected with a tracing-wheel, or with a tracer, or with any rather dull-pointed instrument. In hard wood of a light colour very beautiful effects may thus be produced.
The next step is to cut lines, and combine with these cutting out and excavating spaces, as in ordinary carving. Nevertheless, it is not, as a rule, a good plan to make diapers too ornamental or elaborate; for this will lead to making them large, and then they will draw attention from the pattern, if there is one, or the main figures. When the whole surface is all diaper, as in a carpet, the diapers may be as large and as elaborate as one chooses to make them.
There is but one general rule for designing the diaper. Draw a chess-board, and then by diagonals convert these into “points up and down,” squares, or triangles; or fill the equal spaces with equilateral triangles, hexagons, circles, or pentagons, etc.[1] These may be filled in with any suitable decoration. In Fig. [50] portions of the original surface of the panel have been left as ridges to separate the diapers, and then every one of the latter has been carved with the same ornament; a rather advanced example, but cut only in moderate relief. Another plate, Fig. [52], gives a variety of suitable figures in low relief; some two or three of these should be chosen and repeated in regular order in neighbouring spaces.