Today was mainly devoted to repair work. I had a lot of bad cuts due to the pattern coming loose (my fault).

Repair method
I found that the easiest way was to take a ‘rubbing’ from the empty spaces in my temporarily assembled picture. The empty spaces were where my badly cut or ruined pieces should have been. The method requires that there is an outline edge for the entire piece.

I placed a plain piece of paper over each space in turn and just ran my pencil from side to side. A distinct line is left where the pencil hits the edges leaving a nice outline of the hole which is the shape of the missing piece as shown below.

The paper was then taped at the top to a piece of the appropriate veneer and my craft knife run along the inside of the pencil lines. This leaves a shallow cut the shape of the piece on the veneer. The paper was then removed and the piece carefully cut out, cutting a little deeper on several passes.

This didn’t go so well at first, but I soon improved my cutting technique and the parts began rolling off the assembly line. Not as fast as Henry Ford’s Model T’s, but fast enough for me.

Other Work
I did saw out the green part on the tree trunk so that is new. I plan to get a lot done tomorrow, hopefully to finish up the first stage which will then at least completely cover the pattern. After that I will be deciding how to add the rest of the detail and when that is finished the sand shading has to be done.

I’m feeling much more optimistic after today’s session. Here is what it looks like now and yesterday’s finish just so you can see the empty spaces I fill with my knife cut pieces.

Thanks for having a look!