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A word on
Safe carving:
When
the chips are flying with gouges and mallets, or when using any power
tool, wear safety glasses. Your eyes
are your most valuable tool; protect them.
If you are using power tools that create dust, be sure
to wear a dust mask. Wood can
contain toxic fungi, and some woods themselves can be hazardous.
While applying force to push a knife or gouge through
wood, tools frequently slip. Always keep your hands behind the tool's
sharp edge. Do not hold the wood in your lap while carving. Always try to
secure the work piece on a table or in a vise so that both hands are free
to control the tools. Cuts often happen when one hand is trying to hold
the piece and the other hand is pushing hard on the
tool - and it slips. Secure the work piece, and keep both hands on the
tool and behind the sharp edge.
Use common sense. Listen to the voice of self
preservation. Every time, just before I hurt myself, there was a little
voice in my head saying "you shouldn't be doing this, it's unsafe."
Ignoring it even for a second may result in a trip to the first aid kit.
Speaking of first aid, be sure to keep a well-equipped
first aid kit handy. |
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Wood is composed of
longitudinal cells lying parallel to each other and running in a roughly
straight direction from the roots of the tree to the leaf canopy.
(Note: The grain in a board doesn't always follow the
parallel sides of the board. It often angles slightly up or down, or can
even take unexpected dips and curves.)
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To carve efficiently,
your tools must be razor sharp. They should leave a shiny cut through the
wood, with no white streaks that indicate a nick in the blade.
To determine the
direction of the grain, look at the long cell fibers. The darker streaks
of the annual rings can help indicate the direction of the grain.
Carve in a downward direction onto the parallel lines
of grain. Note, if the wood seems to be tearing, and your tools are sharp,
then you are probably going in the wrong direction. Turn around and carve
in the opposite direction.
You can also carve diagonally across the grain and even
parallel to it, but if you carve upwards against the grain, it will only
tear and splinter the wood .
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Using a Knife:
When working on a small carving that can be held in the
hand, hold the wood in the left hand (assuming you are right handed), the
knife in the right.
Keep the left hand behind the knife and use the left
thumb on the blunt side of the blade to act like a lever to control the
cut. With the thumb stationary, rotate your right hand and wrist to make
the cut.
In this position, if the knife should slip, you will
not be cut. the knife should never go flying out off the wood.
You can also hold the knife
as though you were peeling an apple. Just be careful not to nick your
thumb.
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Using Gouges:
Hold the handle in the palm of the right hand to push
the gouge; hold the metal shaft with the left hand to guide the cut. With
your left hand firmly holding the metal shaft of the gouge and resting on
the wood, it can act like a brake so that the tool does not slip out of
control when pushed forward. Use your body weight to help push the tool.
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Roughing out:
Remove as much of the scrap wood as possible with a
band saw or chain saw.
The most common mistake of first time-carvers is that
they are not aggressive enough in removing material. They never get past
the square shape of the original block. Don't be afraid to round out the
basic shapes.
Start with large U-gouges to remove the maximum amount
of material. Establish large shapes first. A good way to do that is to
define the major planes of the object being carved.
Work from the large forms to the small details. If you
have not established the large shapes, no amount of beautiful detail laid
on top will save ill-defined forms. |
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Adding the Details:
After the structure has been established, you can begin
to put in the details with the smaller U-gouges. V-gouges and veiners
(small U-gouges) help define smaller shapes.
At this point, it is important to keep tools
razor-sharp if you intend to leave the tool marks as the final texture.
Any nicks in the tool's edge will leave white lines in the tool's cut.
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