Carving?

[mikedude]

Anyone do any carving on this forum? I am a greenhorn. My sister for some reason bought two small carving sets and a nice anatomically designed carving knife and a book. She tried it and didn't like it and gave them to me. Good deal for me I thought!

Anyway I read the book and was thinking about trying some simple caricature carvings and some simple flat carvings. Anyone on this board do that kind of thing? Any advice for me?

Thanks, Mike St Augustine, FL

[DUD]

I don't carve as much as I used to, but I still carve. I do some relief carvings on flat wood, animals mostly and some people, still having trpuble getting landscape type right. I do mostly cowboys, football players, dentists, doctors, etc.

Take Your time, use sharp tools, be careful, I try to draw on My blanks, then carve, then draw some more. I use mostly basswood. I hope this helps. Bill

[DonHo]

I don't remember the members name who was doing chip carving for a while but I do remember he had just started and posted pictures of some projects where he included chip carving. Looked pretty good I thought. You might try a search on the finished projects forum for chip carving.
DonHo

[mikeg]

I do a bit of carving in Basswood. Not very good at it but it's relaxing. A great carving forum can be found at http://www.woodcarvingillustrated.com/forum/index.php
They also put out a very good carving magazine.

You can check out some of my carvings at http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeeeill/ It hasn't been updated in a while since I lost the source code for it and will have to rebuild it.

mikeg

[cabinetman]

I do a bit of carving in Basswood. Not very good at it but it's relaxing. A great carving forum can be found at http://www.woodcarvingillustrated.com/forum/index.php
They also put out a very good carving magazine.

You can check out some of my carvings at http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeeeill/ It hasn't been updated in a while since I lost the source code for it and will have to rebuild it.

mikeg

Those are some pretty cool carvings, really unique. Great gift items. Have you tried to sell them?



A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOREVER - John Keats

[Ed62]

I tried the carving thing for a while. The best advice I can offer is "Buy a big box of band-aids.

Ed

[MikeR]

Carving

Hi-

I've done a bit, the flowers and vase were cut from a single piece of basswood, the dogwood blossom from a piece of oak and my dad, years ago, made the decoy.

Lucky to have it.

Spend the time and effort to make certain that your tools are absolutely as sharp as you can get them. Nothing is worse than trying to make an intricate cut with a gouge that doesn't want to work.

I've changed over to the 'scary sharp' method using wet sandpaper and float glass. Very, very good method.

We just returned from a visit to Italy and the carved church pieces are awesome.

Cheers,

MikeR

[MikeR]

Love them!

I do a bit of carving in Basswood. Not very good at it but it's relaxing. A great carving forum can be found at http://www.woodcarvingillustrated.com/forum/index.php
They also put out a very good carving magazine.

You can check out some of my carvings at http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeeeill/ It hasn't been updated in a while since I lost the source code for it and will have to rebuild it.

mikeg

They're absolutely terrific!

Cheers,

MikeR

[mikedude]

Thanks for the advice guys. Nice carvings! I will do my best to keep from cutting my hand. I hope to get some free time this weekend to try some faces on a stick. I need to finish a picture frame I started weeks ago as well. If I accomplish anything worthwhile I will post some pics. Thanks for the info!

Mike St Augustine, FL

[mikeg]

Thanks Cabinetman, glad you like them but I don't get a lot of time to carve and my daughters, 9 & 11, generally lay claim to them before I'm done unless I'm carving it for a specific reason.

And MikeR is right, you want your tools as sharp as possible! Scary Sharp is a good way to go if you don't want to lay out a bunch of money at the begining.

Get yourself a carving glove and a thumbguard and use them! They'll stop most, though not all, of the trips to the first aid kit.

mikeg