Wood Carving Tips
Read these 7 Wood Carving Tips tips to make your life smarter, better, faster and wiser. Each tip is approved by our Editors and created by expert writers so great we call them Gurus. LifeTips is the place to go when you need to know about Wood Working tips and hundreds of other topics.
The Best Woods For Carving
Different types of wood are better for different types of wood carvings. Here are a few of the most popular types of wood:
- Oak, which is a strong and durable type, is most often used to do wood carvings and has been popular since early English craftsmen.
- Pine is a better carving wood for painting.
- Myrtlewood is another popular wood for carving because of its color and strength.
- B asswood and Butternut are good woods for beginners .
- Walnut, Teak, Mahogany, White Beech, Red Cedar, and Hoop Pine are also popular carving woods.
The Henry Taylor Tool Company .
The Henry Taylor Tool Company has an amateur and professional line of Carving chisels available. Both have the same high quality and shape, bu the main difference is the overall length of the tool. Henry Taylor has four digit numbers to dignify their tools: the professionals start with 37 and the amateur start with 24.
Henry Taylor chisels may look like an ordinary straight chisel but they have a rounded bevel on each side of the cutting edge to help cutting into very sharp corners. Henry Taylor offers carving tool sets that are superb. The beginner sets offer a wide range of chisels including:
- 2411-1/4" 6mm straight chisel,
- 2418-1/4" 6mm Straight Gouge,
- 2412-3/8"10mm Skew chisel,
- 2421-1/16" 2mm Veining Tool,
- 2414-3/16" 5mm Straight Gouge,
- 2428-5/16" 8mm Bent Tool,
- 2415-1/8" 3mm Straight Gouge,
- 2431-1/4" 6mm Spoon bit chisel,
- 2415-3/8" 10mm Straight Gouge,
- 2437-1/4" 6mm Spoon bit chisel,
- 2416-1/4" 6mm Straight Gouge, and
- 2449- 1/4" 6mm Straight Tool.
With that in mind, you can be assured that hard earned money is well
spent on high quality tools that will last a life time.
Wood Carving Schools
To fully appreciate wood carving, sometimes it pays to learn from the masters. All over the world woodworking classes are being held. If your true calling is to become a wood carving artist than learning the proper basics is where you need to start. To be able to transform a simple block of wood into a beautiful work of art is a truly noble endeavor. The level of classes available range from beginners to advanced, and the price range is in reach for most artists.
Diffrerent Carvings You Can Do
Relief wood carvings are flat on the back and the image is carved in 3-dimension on the front. This style is often used for scenes like in churches or on objects such as gun stocks. But can be a carving of any subject and is usually displayed by hanging on a wall. As with other styles, it may be painted, stained, or left natural.
Whittling is perhaps the oldest style of woodcarving and is done with a basic carving knife, as in the old cowboy movies. When the carving is completed you can see 'knife marks' signaling that the carving isn't smooth. This carving also can be painted or left natural.
Carving in the round is a carving that is completed all the way around and is more 'life-like' on the surface. It might be a person or an animal, maybe a bird such as a duck decoy; it might be big or small; it might be to scale or life-size.
Chip carving is when chip knives are used to remove "chips" or small pieces of wood. In theory, chip carvings have just two levels: the wood surface, and the point just below the surface where the wood cuts meet. Carvings can be free hand or based on different shapes such as triangles, circles, simple lines, and curves.
Wood Carving: Then And Now
Wood carving dates back to the middle ages and can be found in such countries as Italy, France, England and Japan, where wood carving played a predominant role in their society. For example, Christian iconographic symbols carved of wood are found in great cathedrals throughout the world. In North America, the carvings were used as spiritual symbols, having great meanings for their religion as well.
Wood Carving Patterns
Wood Carving patterns can be broken down into carving themes. These carving themes cover almost anything you can think of from birds to water to 3-D carving. And the supply of patterns available on the Internet seems endless.
Patterns are available online for relief carving or freestanding three-dimensional carving, and more. The best means of transferring a pattern from a design to the wood is by the use of graphite paper. Graphite paper is especially good for this because the lines may be erased with a regular eraser.
Pfeil Swiss Made Carving Tools
Pfeil "Swiss Made" Carving Tools are among the finest tools made. Their Brienz collection is made of lacquered, beech storage and has wonderful corner box joints, brass hinges, clasps, a leather handle, a removable top tool tray and individual compartments for 21 Swiss carving tools, a 14-1/2 oz. beech carving mallet, a No. 1 and a No. 2 Arkansas honing stone, and one 4 ounce container of sharpening oil.
Pfeil Tool sets include:
- #1 Straight Chisel 16mm,
- #1 Skew Cut Chisel 16mm,
- #2 Gouge 20mm,
- #3 Gouge 3mm,
- #3 Gouge 12mm,
- #3 Gouge 25mm,
- #5 Gouge 35mm,
- #7 Gouge 20mm,
- #8 Gouge 7mm,
- #8 Gouge 18mm,
- #8 Gouge 25mm,
- #8 Spoon Gouge 18mm,
- #7 Heavy Bent Gouge 25mm,
- #9 Gouge 7mm,
- #9 Gouge 15mm,
- #11 Veiner 2mm,
- #11 Veiner 10mm,
- #15 V-Parting Tool 3mm,
- #12 V Parting Tool 10mm,
- #14 V Parting Tool 8mm,
- and a Brienz Carver's Knife.
| Guru Spotlight |
| Barbara Gibson |
