Flying Chips

DESIGN LIMITATIONS OR DESIGN OPPORTUNITIES?

2011-12-31T15:42:00.001-07:00

This time I'm introducing an intermission in the Faces Tutorial to talk about something that has been weighing on my mind of late: the limitations imposed on design by the way we work. Clint Eastwood, in one of his gajillion movies, once said that a man has to know his limitations. Well, a lot (by no means all!) of my limitations can be summed up in the fact that I don't use power tools: band saw, scroll saw, circular saw, table saw, router, sander, Dremel, Foredom, Weecher, etc. Another of my limitations is that I don't like to use gouges. The worst cut I ever gave myself was with a gouge. Irrational, I know, but . . . .

Take a look at old 9-Toes Nelson here. I carved him from a 1-1/2" square by 6" long piece of bass wood. He is all one piece of wood, including the rifle. Since I don't use a band saw to cut out the basic form of a piece, I am limited to smaller carvings if I don't want to spend more time hoggin' off waste wood than I do carving. Nor do I clamp things to a bench and work off the wood with gouges. If a design requires that kind of thing, I don't do it. I have to be able to hold the piece in one hand while I work on it. That's a limitation. Isn't it?

Let's talk about painting a minute. Old 9-Toes up there is just about my most ambitious painting effort to date, what with that striped shirt and all. If you want to see some real painting go to Lynn Doughty's website and look in his gallery. THAT's what I call painting! I would love to produce pieces of that quality, but I find that I just don't enjoy painting. Even the limited painting I do takes as long or longer than the carving. Why spend all that time doing something I don't enjoy when I could be carving, something I do enjoy. There's another limitation. Right?

I call this my Birds & Fishes Love Spoon, one of my early efforts. It's 11" long and about 2-1/2" wide. There are some pretty complex and small celtic knots in that piece. Pay particular attention to the necks of the cranes. All done with a drill and a knife. (A battery powered drill is the only concession I make to the no-power-tools rule, since I can use it anywhere and hold the piece with one hand and drill with the other.) Took for-freakin'-ever! Even though it's done in poplar, which is a pretty soft hardwood.

Now go take a look at some of David Western's love spoons. I admire his work more than I can say. And, boy, would I like to be able to do that kind of complex work. But I've come to the conclusion that if I stay with using only hand-powered tools I'm going to be limited to only doing things like this.

That's a real limitation. Isn't it? Somehow I don't think so.

I didn't always think that way. For a long time I wanted so badly to do all the beautiful, complex things I saw people like Lynn and Dave do. And I was frustrated. Lately I have come to my senses. I think.

Of late I have come to see my limitations, the constraints I impose on my way of working, more as opportunities than as limitations. I don't have to paint like Lynn Doughty. I don't have to do complex knots like Dave Western (though I still find myself wanting to!). What I have to do is improve the skill with which I do what I want to do. I have to develop designs that make the most of the hand tools I use. I have to find the opportunities that exist within the constraints I have imposed upon myself and use them to do things no one else does. Only in this way will I grow as an artist, a carver.

Design limitations? No! Design opportunities.

I want to encourage everyone who reads this blog to evaluate how you work, what you really like to do. Develop your own designs to make the most of your tools and your methods. Don't let these things limit you. Find the opportunities that are there and grow!

[Rev] By all this I don't mean to imply that those who use power tools are any less an artist than the mossy-backs like me that just use hand tools. Artistry is artistry whether you use a chainsaw or a pocket knife. Use whatever makes you happy and to hell with those who say you're wrong!

Until next time, let the chips fly!

THE NOSE

2011-12-18T12:04:00.000-07:00

Today we are going to start on the nose, but first, in order to move around the carving so that you don't get too concentrated on any one thing, let's start making the slope from below the chin to the nose more gradual.

Just start shaving wood away from the whole front of the face from below the chin line up toward the nose.

When you are done, the profile should look something like this. I don't typically take this all the way to the nose, because the bottom of the mustache will stick out farther than where the upper lip joins the nose.

Now you want to determine the width of your carving's nose. Make it wider than you think it needs to be. You can always remove wood if you think it is too wide, but you can't put wood back if you get it too narrow. So make the first mark on one side of the center line. This will locate the outside of the nostril.

Using the same precision measuring method you used to locate your nose and mouth lines, measure the distance from the center line to the nostril line you just drew and transfer that measurement to the other side of the center line.

Now you have the limits of your nose marked out.

Now make a slightly slanted cut up from the nose center line to the outside of the nose. If you look in the mirror you will probably find that the outside of your nostrils are higher than the point at which the center of your nose meets your upper lip.

Your carving should look like this.

Do the same thing on the other side of the nose.

Next you want to make another cut, slanted upward at a greater angle, from the bottom of the nostril line.

You probably won't be able to cut all the way down to the bottom of the nose cut the first time, so don't be afraid to make multiple cuts.

Clean up the bottom of the cut before proceeding.

Make a third cut along the outside of the nostril, this time almost, but not quite, parallel to the center line. Once you repeat these cuts on the other side of the nose, your carving should look like this.

Nostrils have a top, so you'll want to make one more cut to delineate that.

It's time to start defining the shape of the bridge of the nose. Start the cut at the inside end of the top of the nostril and curve it up all the way to the eyebrows.

If you run your finger along the side of your nose from the top of the bridge down to your cheek, you will be able to feel that the side of your nose slopes out from the top. Make your cut with the blade of your knife sloped accordingly. In order to maintain good control of your blade you need to make several shallow cuts rather than one deep one. As you can see (look where the arrow is pointing) my knife slipped on the first cut and extended out over the eyebrow onto the forehead. A classic example of using too much force. I'm not worried about it, because the cut is shallow and will probably be carved out as the carving progresses. By the way, in case you didn't know, you can click on the photo and view it full size. Details are much clearer.

Make a slanted cut back down from the outside toward the nose cut. You are going to wind up with a "vee" cut here. The bottom of the "vee" should be only slightly above the level of the upper lip. Take your right index finger and put it on the high-point of your right cheek bone. This should be just under the outside corner of your eye. Now slide your finger in to the side of your nose and then back out to where you started. You should be able to feel that your face slopes from your cheek down toward your nose.

This is how the carving should look once you have done both sides of the nose. You can really see the cut I made when my knife slipped in this photo. You will make mistakes. Don't let it worry you. It's only a piece of wood!

Next time we'll start on the eyes. Eyes really worry beginning carvers, but they really aren't that difficult to do. You'll see!

So, until next time, let those chips fly!

Roughing Out the Brow and Eye Planes

2011-12-01T15:31:00.000-07:00

Before we get started, I thought you might want to meet Wallace.

Wallace is the latest addition to my stable of wood spirits. I originally thought about calling him Cyrano because of his nose, but my daughter thought he looked like one of the characters in the Wallace & Grommet claymation movies, so, Wallace, he became. He serves as another example of the great variety of things we humans recognize as faces.

And now, to business!

The next thing we want to do is give the upper part of the face a little depth, so we are going to carve a flat plane from the nose up to meet the hair line. Start about 1/4" above the nose cut. You want to leave enough wood to give you some options later on. We want to establish the depth of the hair line to be a little less than the depth of the nose cut. I am using a push cut here as I showed you in the previous post.

Push that cut all the way up to the furrow you cut along the hair line. You may well have to readjust your grip on the wood to finish the cut. That's OK. Take a look at the chip I've raised here. Your chip shouldn't be any thicker than this one.

You may find it easier to use the lever cut technique, using the thumb of your holding hand as a pivot point. By using the last third or quarter of the blade length as shown here, you'll get a longer cut with less force.

This is about what your first cut should look like.

As you deepen the cut at the hair line, you'll want to cut down from above also. On most people who don't sport a rockabilly hairdo the hair doesn't jut out from the forehead at a right angle. Here I'm using what I call a pivot cut. I have planted my knife-hand thumb against the wood and am pivoting the knife around that point down into the wood. This is a fairly safe cut, even though you are cutting back toward your holding hand, for three reasons. First, you are cutting down into the wood. The blade will stop against the bottom of the cut you just finished up from the nose. Second, by using this pivot cut you limit the travel of the blade. It can't move more than an inch or so, and your thumb and holding hand are out of the way. Third, you'll be taking multiple thin cuts, so you don't have to use excessive force. And (remember this?) excessive force is the most common cause for knife slippage.

At this point, your carving should look similar to this.

Left side view. As you can see, the depth of the cut at the hair line is not quite as deep as the depth at the nose cut.

Now we need to start carving in the areas where the eyes will be. You want to cut another flat plane on both sides of the face's center line from a point just below where you started the hair line cut up to the hair line.

Again, you'll be making multiple thin cuts.

When you're done, your carving should look something like what you see on the left side of the center line. On the right of the center line, I've already done the next step, but fear not, I'll show you the cuts in a bit.

A side view of what I call the eye plane.

Now you want to scoop out a concave chunk of wood from the bottom of the eye plane cut you just did to a point just above the eye line. You want to angle the knife edge down into the wood then, as the cut progresses, turn the knife edge horizontal then up leaving a dip in the wood,

Due to the grain direction you will get a little tear out as you see here. Don't worry about it.

Just grab the piece by the other end and cut down toward the bottom of the dip with the same technique you used above. Be careful because you won't have as much wood to hold onto as you did cutting from below. So use the lever cut and make thin cuts. You'll be able to smooth out the bottom of the dip using very light cuts with the tip of the blade.

Make a cut from the top of the dip you just carved down and back to the hair line. This will establish your carving's eye brows.

Once you are done, begin doing the same thing on the other side of the face. Try to keep the two sides as symmetrical as you can. Both sides don't have to be exactly the same, but keeping them nearly the same at this stage will simplify things later in the carving process. You will probably have to go back and make some corrective cuts on one side, then the other. I did! When you are done your carving should look something like this.

Left hand view.

Right hand view.

Use your pencil to extend the eye lines from the remnants of the eye line that you drew past the hair line. I told you that would be useful!

We're going to stop now. You must be tired. I know I am! Strop your knife really well so it will be as sharp as you can get it when we begin again. I can't emphasize enough the importance of stropping often.

Next time we'll work on the lower part of the face. At this point the temptation is to continue with the eyes, but that's really not a good idea. Most beginning carvers want to begin carving detail way too soon in the process. You want to get all the major forms on the face carved before you start any kind of detail carving. If you started detailed carving on the eyes now, probably you would make them too small. You need to have your nose better established to get the eye size right. Form must always precede detail. The basic form gives you the location and size of the details. So don't get in a hurry.

Until next time, let those chips fly.

Cutting Wood

2011-11-19T16:25:00.001-07:00

Well, you can't carve a face like this without cutting wood, so here we go! Be sure to wear your carving glove and thumb protector. I don't want you springing a leak and getting blood all over that lovely piece of wood you have in your hand! That will just ruin a carving.

The first thing you need to do is take the tip of your knife and cut into the wood following the line you drew to outline the face. Cut in at a slight downward angle; it'll be a little easier that way. Don't worry if you wander off line. As you can see, I did.

Next, from just below the first cut make a series of small cuts back toward the first cut. Do this all the way around the face. Or where the face will be.

This leaves you with a small furrow that outlines the place your face will soon appear. This line will sink straight, more or less, down into the wood as we continue to carve to it, deeper and deeper from both sides. Look at old Sleepy at the top of this post. This furrow you just cut is where his forehead disappears into the wood. Since this is his hair line, you don't want it wandering too far north or south from where it is, or your facial proportions will be off. I just want to repeat here that this is neither rocket science nor mathematics, so it doesn't matter if the line moves a little.

Here's where we begin locating and carving the nose. Make a shallow cut straight down into the wood along the nose line. Try to make the cut extend an equal distance on either side of the center line. You won't be able to cut far down into the wood so don't worry about it and don't try to force it. That cut you just made is called a stop cut. It's called that because it stops the next cut you make from going too far.

Now place your knife below the stop cut on the nose line and cut back up to it raising a small chip of wood like you see here. You're going to be making a lot of these cuts, and each time you do, renew the stop cut at the nose line so the chip will fall away.

This kind of cut is called a "push cut". You will be using it a lot. As you can see from the photo, you put the thumb of the hand holding the wood on the back of the knife blade and push. This gives you a great deal of control and minimizes the chance that the knife will slip and run away from you. Use just enough force to make the cut and don't try to take too large a chip at any one time. Cutting thin chips may seem like the "slow boat" way to do things, but, believe me, once you get some practice you can remove just as much wood just as quickly and much more safely as you can with a single deep cut. You can also make this cut by putting one thumb on top of the other, but that's a little hard on the bottom thumb.

You can also make the cut this way. Put the thumb of your holding hand on the back of the blade and move your knife hand back toward you. This turns your thumb into a fulcrum and your knife into a lever. You still have great control and much more power than with a straight push cut.

You will continue to make these cuts until you have cut a deep vee up to the nose line as shown in this photo. This will take some time, and you will get tired, so take a break every now and then. You want to make this cut deep, because if you don't your face will be flat. You don't want to carve flat faces! One of my issues about wood spirits is that many of them have flat faces when viewed from the side. I don't like that look, but your mileage may vary.

Old Tangle Foot here doesn't have a flat face, and neither should the wood spirits you carve. I haven't always been so successful as with Tangle Foot, but that was mostly because I was carving in a hard wood and got lazy. One rule to keep in mind: if you think you've finally carved deep enough, carve deeper!

Next time we'll start defining the upper part of the face. Be prepared for some major wood removal!

So, until then, let those chips fly!

Laying Out The Face

2011-11-05T13:31:00.001-06:00

Here we go, people! Getting down to business! As I said earlier, start out with a birch wood dowel 1-1/2" in diameter and about 6" long. You can start with a branch if you want, but I recommend commercial wood to learn on because of its consistency.

The first thing you want to do is draw a center line down the length of the dowel. It doesn't have to be exact. (You'll be hearing that OFTEN!). I put my pinky against the dowel and pulled my hand down the length with the point of the pencil against the wood. This will help you keep both sides of your carving more or less symmetrical. I say "more or less" because absolute symmetry is not only unnecessary, it is unnatural!

Now we are going to start laying out the face. You might notice that I haven't mentioned anything about a "pattern". That's because I think patterns for this type of carving are unnecessary and stifle creativity. If you learn to carve without a pattern, every carving will be different. And that's the way it should be! It's more fun to be surprised when the face emerges from the wood. Draw a short line across the center line roughly an 1-1/2" down from the top. This will be the location of your face's hair line. This will give you room on the bottom for a flowing beard. We are going to be doing a woodspirit with long hair and a flowing beard. I chose this for the very good reason that it will allow you to concentrate on the eyes, cheeks and nose (where most people have issues) without worrying about ears and chin.

Now let's talk about facial proportions. Absolute measurements are NOT important. Close is good enough. Remember the "Rule of Three". Take a look at The Woodbee Carver's site for a good diagram. Also check out his blog. It'll be well worth your time. In addition to what you see there, the width of the face (we are going to use the whole width of the dowel for that) is 2/3 of the distance from the hair line to the chin. So, using the precision caliper that is my hand and pencil I measure the diameter of the dowel.

I transfer that measurement to the front of the dowel by putting my thumb at the hair line mark, then lift my hand until the tip of the pencil contacts the wood, where I make a small mark. I extend that mark a bit so that it is more visible. This gives us the location of the bottom of the nose.

Since the distance from the hair line to the eye line is 1/3 the length of the face, all we have to do is divide the distance we just marked off in two by placing a line ABOUT half way between the two lines we've already drawn. Now we have the location of the eye line.

The distance from the nose line to the chin line is equivalent to the distance from the eye line to the nose line. So, using that precision set of calipers you have on the end of your arm, measure that distance, move your thumb to the nose line, and make a mark on the center line. This gives you the location of the chin. You may ask that if we are going to cover the lower part of the face with a beard, why do we need to know where the chin is. Even though the chin will be covered it will still affect the shape of the beard, so we need to know where it is.

You should now have something that looks like this. You have now located all the major features of the face we are going to carve.

Now I suggest that you take the hair line and extend it in a more or less natural curve out to the sides of the dowel and down to below the nose line. This is the starting point for all the hair that will be on this guy. You should extend the facial lines out past the hair line, because you will be carving these marks away as you work. You'll want to redraw those line several times, so it helps to have them where they won't be carved away.

We'll stop at this point for now. Next time we'll actually put knife to wood!

So, until then, let those chips fly!

Carving Safety

2011-10-26T16:40:00.000-06:00

OK. Today we are going to talk about safety. Carving, just like any time you are playing with sharp and pointy objects, is risky. You can (will!) get cut.

Getting cut can be dangerous. You can damage tendons, muscles and nerves if you go deep enough.

Getting cut can be expensive. A trip to the emergency room will cost you big bucks.

Getting cut is annoying. You get blood on the carving, not to mention floor, carpet, clothes, etc., and the stains just don't come out. Depending on where you cut yourself, you could be out of the carving game while you heal.

So let's try to minimize the chances of getting cut.

The first thing you need to do is get a carving glove. The one I am so elegantly modeling here is available from your local Woodcraft store (I receive no financial or in-kind remuneration from Woodcraft) for somewhere between $15 and $20. A whole heck of a lot cheaper than a trip to the emergency room. This one I believe has kevlar in the weave. Others have stainless steel woven in. Aside from Woodcraft another good source for good cut resistant gloves is a restaurant supply store. The internet is also a good source.

Keep in mind that no glove is absolute proof against getting cut. A really sharp knife moving at high speed with a lot of force behind it will cut through almost all non-chain-mail gloves. But you won't get cut as badly as you would if you weren't wearing the glove. And no glove, including chain-mail, will keep you from getting stabbed. Although, again, it won't be as deep or as serious.

Now, for about the first 45 years after I first picked up a knife, I didn't use a carving glove. And I got cut every once in a while. Never seriously, thank goodness, but I do have scars. I finally began using a glove (it was a struggle, like quitting smoking), because I didn't want to get cut anymore. I can't truthfully say I put on the glove every time I pick up a knife now, but about 95% of the time I do so.

Another good investment is a thumb guard. The ones Woodcraft carries are leather with an elastic strap across the back. They come in various sizes and cost somewhere around $5 a pair. Not only do they protect your thumb from being cut, mostly, they cushion your thumb as you push on the back of your knife for a push cut. You can also make your own thumb guard with medical tape or vet wrap, available in any drug store.

Now we've talked about the equipment, let's talk about procedures. There are a lot of "rules" out there in the wild about safe carving. One of the most common, heard from every parent at one time or another, is "don't cut toward yourself". Good advice. Except. If you are carving wood, especially if you are trying to comply with the other rule of "cut with the grain", sooner or later you will be cutting toward yourself. All you can do is establish safe habits for this type of cut. For instance, have a piece of the carving between you and the blade.

This is a good practice, but it is not fool proof. I have cut myself doing this when the grain was such that the knife split off a piece of the carving and continued right into my finger. I wasn't wearing a glove at the time, worse luck.

The most valuable advice I can give you is this:

1. Learn to properly sharpen your tools and keep them as sharp as you can possibly get them at all times. A sharp tool is a safer tool. It requires less force to move the tool through the wood, and excessive force being applied to the tool is probably the most common cause for the tool slipping. And slipping is probably the most common cause of getting cut.

2. Before you make a cut, plan it out. Look at what you need to cut, and how much you need to take off. Look at where your blade will go if it slips and keep your leaky parts out of that area. This sounds like it takes a long time, but as you gain experience this will become second nature.

3. Take small chips. One of the most common causes of blade slippage is trying to take off too much wood with one cut. Small cuts take less force, and we all know about force, don't we. If we don't, reread #1 above. With practice your small cuts can move as much wood almost as quickly as a single large cut.

If you have about $25 to spare, I highly recommend you go to Pinewood Forge and order Harley Refsal's video, "Figure Carving Scandinavian Style". Not only is it a great video about the history and practice of Scandinavian flat plane figure carving, it has what I consider to be the best demonstration of carving safety, sharpening your knife, wearing a glove, limiting your cuts, etc., that I have ever seen. And I've watched a lot of carving videos! (Again, I don't receive any consideration, financial or otherwise, from Pinewood Forge.)

This is getting long, but one more thing. Tendinitis, also known as tennis elbow, golfer's elbow, etc. I got it as a result of starting to use a carving glove. I was gripping the carving so hard to keep it from slipping that I gave myself carver's elbow. It is painful. And persistent. It kept me from carving for six weeks, and when I started carving again, it came back. That's when I found this video. Within a week of doing the exercises two or three times a day, the tendinitis went away. Occasionally, I will start to get a relapse, but after a couple of days of doing the exercises, it goes away again.

Well, I've made this post probably too long, but safety is important, and the more you educate yourself about it, the safer you will be.

So until next time when we will actually get started, let the chips fly!

THE MAGIC OF FACES - KNIVES

2011-10-10T12:15:00.002-06:00

As I believe I mentioned earlier these posts are going to be enhanced and made into a book that will be available on Kindle and Nook (assuming I can work out photography) for the low, low price of $2.99. For that reason I'm covering the initial steps prior to carving just like it was a tutorial for a beginner, hence the posts on knives and the one to come on Safety. Be patient, we'll get to the actual carving very soon.

The knife you use to carve is important. It has to fit your hand, not slide around when your hand gets sweaty, and be comfortable to hold for long periods. More important than the knife is how sharp it is. For most of my carving life I used a folding pocket knife (more on this later), and while it was what I considered sharp, I didn't really know what sharp was until I purchased my first fixed-blade, honest-to-goodness carving knife from Del Stubbs at Pinewood Forge. That's the knife I'm talking about there to the left of old Happy, the Wood Spirit. I have since learned to put a carving edge on just about any knife, and I would suggest you do the same. You don't need a lot of expensive equipment (multiple diamond hones, water stones, ceramic stones, etc.) to do the job right. Just google "scary sharp system" and you will find everything you need for not much money. Just don't fall into the trap of over-sharpening. Once you get a good edge on the knife (many knives come with a great edge) all you need to do is strop the edge every half hour or so. Unless you try to carve a nail or something you should almost never touch the knife to a sharpener again.

Another knife I have used is the Flexcut Pelican pictured here.

I consider a sheath of some kind an essential accessory to a carving knife. They take up less room (yeah, even that Flexcut sheath) than the traditional packaging a knife comes in, and they provide protection for the edge. This Flexcut sheath is pretty pricey, about half the cost of the knife itself, but it will save you a lot of worry.

Del Stubs's knives come with traditional Scandinavian birch bark sheaths at no extra cost, so the cost of one of his knives is about the same as the cost of a Pelican and sheath.

I've posted an official photo of the Flexcut Pelican to point out a peculiarity of mine. I can't leave a production knife alone. I've always got to be modifying them to make them fit me better. By comparing the photos of my Pelican above and the factory Pelican here, you can see what I've done.

The first thing I did was take a sander to the handle and remove the factory finish. Straight from the factory Flexcut knives come with a hard, slick (polyurethane, I presume) finish to the handle. As soon as my hand starts sweating, the knife starts trying to slide around. This results in gripping the knife harder and, for me at least, a case of tendinitis (we'll talk about this in the upcoming Safety post).

The next thing I did was very carefully grind the hump off the point of the blade. Flexcut puts that hump there to strengthen the point, but I wanted a point that would allow me to make really tight turns. I knew grinding that hump off would make the point more delicate, but I've broken enough points off blades to know how to avoid that.

This lesson of this is that you can take a factory knife that isn't exactly what you need, and, with some research and experience, modify it to make it truly yours.

Now, this is the one knife that I'm going to use to carve the face in this tutorial. It's the Regular Slojd from Pinewood Forge. It has a 2-1/4" blade, a birch bark sheath, a beautiful wood handle that doesn't slide around in your hand, and costs $38 the last I looked. If you like a shorter blade they have the Short Slojd with a 1-3/4" blade. (Full disclosure, I have always paid for everything I received from Pinewood Forge.) Del and Mary are great people to deal with and will bend over backward to get you what you want. By the way, I haven't modified this knife a whit. It's perfect the way it is.

You may have noticed something about all the knives I've recommended here: they all have a curved edge. I think this is the best blade style for a beginner. I prefer the curved edge because it makes slicing cuts easier. A slicing cut is the easiest, most efficient way to cut wood. It requires less force and thus is safer. Even when you push the blade straight into the wood, the curved edge imparts a natural slicing action. An awful lot of carving knives have a straight edge, some variation of what is called a Wharncliffe blade style. I do use these blades for some things, but I consider them an expert's blade due to the more complex motion that is required to get a slicing cut.

One more caveat, you will need a knife with a relatively thick blade which gives more support to the edge. That's not so important if you are carving in commercially obtained wood, but if you are carving in found wood, and you will probably want to do that sooner or later, you will want that support to deal with whatever foreign objects (dirt, etc.) might be present. Just be careful.

About folding knives: beginners shouldn't use them. Now some may call me an uneducated hypocrite because most kids start whittling with folding knives, and, in fact, my first whittling knife was a folding knife. But today I wouldn't start any child or adult beginner with anything but a fixed blade knife for safety reasons. Until you get good with a knife, practicing the proper ways to make a cut, folding knives have a tendency to fold (go figure!) and cut your fingers. Yep, happened to me on a couple of occasions. So, please, stick to fixed blade knives for a while.

If you have any questions about knives, sharpening or stropping, feel free to leave a comment.

Next time we'll cover Safety. You'll want to pay attention because, trust me, blood will just ruin a good piece of wood.

Until then, let the chips fly!

THE MAGIC OF FACES

2011-10-03T15:07:00.000-06:00

Faces are an endless source of fascination for me and for many other carvers. One of the most often heard requests is "Can you teach me to carve faces?" And that's only natural.

Human beings are hardwired to recognize faces. I believe that to be a survival skill from our earliest tribal days a million years ago. At that time our pre-homo sapiens sapiens ancestors lived in small groups that could be called tribes. Inter-tribal warfare was probably more common than not, so it was a decided advantage to be able to distinguish between "us" and "them". "Them" were dangerous!

Facial recognition was also a great help in keeping the nuclear family stable. Imagine the embarrassment if Ugh got caught dragging Eeep's wife off to his cave. "Ooops! Sorry Eeep! I thought she was my wife. You know these females. They all look alike to me."

Research has shown that humans can recognize a face in the most rudimentary of drawings or pictures. Take the Happy Face for example. What is it but a circle, two dots and a curve.

Not only do we see faces in rudimentary drawings, we also see them in nature: clouds, rocks and even pieces of wood. Take The Jester up at the top of the post. Before I took my knife to him, he was just a piece of a tree branch, but I could see him in there just waiting to get out.

It's a lot of fun to carve faces into found wood, but for beginners or moderately advanced carvers it is easier to learn with commercially processed wood. Found wood is, to be polite, variable in quality. The piece that I used to carve The Jester had soft spots, downright rotten spots, and grain that went every which way. It short, it was a challenge, one that required the use of CA glue to stabilize a couple of areas.

That's why, as I show you how I carve faces I'll be using a piece of 1-1/2" birch dowel that I got from my local Woodcraft store. You just buy a 3-foot length for less than $5.00 and cut it up into six 6" pieces. It's cheap, so if you accidentally turn it into firewood, you haven't lost much in the way of materials. The wood is consistent in density and the grain runs all in one direction. That's what I used to carve old Windy there.

In the next post I'll talk about the knife I use. I say knife instead of tools because I'm going to be showing you how to do this with one knife. Once you learn how to carve a face with only a knife, it's easy to bring other tools into the process.

So, until next time, let those chips fly!

I'm Baaaack!!!

2011-09-30T16:17:00.000-06:00

Well, here I am again. I know, I know. I've been gone SO long. I was very surprised to see that during my long absence I was still getting people coming by to browse. Not a lot, mind you, but that's only to be expected. I hope that with my restored presence more people will be dropping in.

I have big plans! I am going to start a series of blog posts about carving faces. These posts will eventually be published (if I can keep up and not get discouraged) in expanded form, complete with photos, as a Kindle and Nook book for the low, low price of $2.99. I already have a couple of fiction books for those platforms (Kindle / Nook) (HINT, HINT). If that works out, I may do some more. If you don't own one of the mobile platforms (tablet or smartphone) you can get the reading software for free to install on your computer. That's what I did.

I will also be doing some cross promoting of other carver's websites/blogs. Today I'd like to direct your attention to "The Forest Girl" written by The Ancient Muse. I don't think she's ancient at all! She does many different types of art, but I like her carved wooden jewelry. She has a very distinctive style and is well worth a look.

So, until next time (SOON, really!), let those chips fly.

Lovespoons, Colored and Not

2010-01-31T17:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I said I'd do it, and I did it. I painted a lovespoon. Actually, two. The first was the"uff-da" spoon that I painted with multi-colored acrylics just to see what it looked like. The second was the twin of the "uff-da" spoon, without the miscalculation. Looking at the photo above you can see that I painted the sides of the "fountain" the same antique gold that I painted the inside of the bowl. The other spoon I painted with raw sienna to get away from the unrelieved white of bare basswood. Here is a photo from a different angle.

The diamond on the lower spoon was too large. Everything was fine while I was carving it, but when I began to oil the thing, hanging onto the upper part while wiping the bowl with oil, the thing snapped at the diamond cut out. Out came the super glue!

I like both spoons. I think comparing them as to which I like better is a lot like comparing apples and oranges: they are different animals. If you would like to see more on this subject, check out The Woodbee Carver. He put it so much better than I could.

I did do some more work on the spalted maple lovespoon. BTW, pay no attention to that idiot that hijacked my blog last time to say that spalted maple was hard, but not unreasonably so! Maple, even spalted maple, is no wood for the casual carver, unless, of course, they carve with power. In which case it doesn't matter how hard the wood is. If you are doing it with a knife, however, don't expect to take a slice more than a 64th of an inch thick with any regularity.

Actually it isn't unreasonably hard, you just have to change the way you carve, unless maybe you're a rock climber who can lift his entire body weight just by closing his hand. Using a standard paring cut makes my hand cramp within a couple of minutes. To do the piercings I changed from doing a paring cut with a standard sloyd-type knife to using a couple of bent knives. That way I use my forearm muscles instead of my hand muscles.

The blades are double-edged, slow curved, one with an inside bevel and one with an outside bevel. They are made by Mike Komick at Preferred Edge. I made the handles myself (still need a little work). The inside bevel blade is great for the straight cuts inside the piercings, and the outside bevel blade makes those inside curves a cinch.

Gotta go get the meatloaf out of the oven. Until next time, let those chips fly!

A New Spoon And An Old Axe

2010-01-24T17:27:00.000-07:00

I have completed the redo of the Art Deco Fountain Spoon without major mishap this time. I haven't finished it yet, dithering about what to do with that lily-white wood. I started coloring the messed-up spoon with colored pencils, but quickly carved that off. My technique needs some (a lot!) of work.

Meanwhile I've started a new spoon using spalted maple.

The design begins with a Maltese cross inscribed in a circle at the top. Below that are two large, pierced hearts, and below that an anchor symbolizing the desire to settle down. The departure from my usual methods and materials are two-fold. This is my first attempt at carving spalted maple. So far, my opinion is, harder than poplar, but not unreasonably hard. This is also the first time I have used nothing but a hatchet (hand axe, whatever) and a knife to rough out a spoon. The only saw cut I made was at the top of the spoon bowl on the back as a stop cut. The hatchet belonged to my paternal grandfather. It's marked Shapleigh Hardware Co. -- Diamond Edge. The claim is not unreasonable.

I not only used the hatchet to rough most of the profile, I used it to thin the handle of the spoon.

It was actually quicker than sawing, considering what a horrendous sawyer I am.

This is the back of the spoon. Not much worse than if I used a saw and certainly quicker. Maybe one day the old Nordic woodsmen won't laugh and make fun of me.

That's it for today. Gotta go make dinner.

Until next time, let the chips fly!

That's Some Mighty Purty Kindlin'!

2010-01-07T18:17:00.002-07:00

This is the newest effort at a lovespoon. I call it the Art Deco Fountain.

Looks pretty good from this angle. I'm especially fond of the Art Deco "Fountain of Life" with the diamond in it. I originally wasn't so sure about the heart-piercing on the handles of the keys, but having looked at it a while, it's starting to grow on me. On top is the eternal flame.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T17:46:00.002-07:00

I wish all who visit this site a happy and healthy new year. And health, especially among us carvers, should be near the top of the must do list. Carvers, and especially me, are particularly at risk for tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome.

I don't, typically, use a carving glove for a couple of reasons. One is that I started carving before there was such a thing as a carving glove, and did it so long I couldn't get used to using a glove. The other reason is that once upon a time I became determined that I was going to learn to use a carving glove no matter what. So I got a glove and used it exclusively for a couple of months, whereupon I developed tendinitis. Carving gloves, at least the ones I had access to, were slipperier than my bare hand, so I was gripping the pieces I was working on so hard that tendinitis was a sure thing. I wasn't able to carve for almost three months.

Then I ran across the following video. I did the exercises several times a day for two weeks, and I was pain free again. Since that time I continue to do the exercises every couple of weeks or if I find my hands starting to tingle. I have had no more problems. So if you are having problems, or if you want to avoid having problems, give the exercises a try. They can all be done inside a couple of minutes, and they've saved me a lot of pain.

So have a happy and health new year!

Back In The Saddle Again!

2009-12-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

Greetings and Salutations! Hope everyone had a fine Christmas and is looking forward to the New Year.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I've been busy on a new lovespoon. This one I'm calling Cranes & Cross, for obvious reasons. It's made of a nominal 3"x1"x12" poplar board.

It doesn't come out in the photos very well, but there is a stripe of brownish-green running through the right hand side of the spoon. That's the reason the eye and wing of the right-hand crane stand out more than the left.

I'm very fond of the pairs concept in lovespoon design, especially cranes as they mate for life. After all, isn't that what it's all about? I'm also fond, as I'm sure some of you have noticed, of the two-hearts-merged-into-one bowl design.

The knot is called Fae's Eternal Promise. I have modified it a bit to accentuate the heart shape.

This spoon I did a little differently in that I only used the hand saw to rip the handle to the depth I wanted it. I used a drill to start the piercings. The rest of the shaping and finishing was done with knives. It is an original design, and took me about 10-12 hours over four days.

You might note the feet on the cranes. That wasn't an intentional design element. While doing the leg on the left-hand crane I got a little carried away with wood removal. You know how it is when the wood just seems to be flying off the edge of your knife. Luckily I noticed it before I chewed all the way through the leg. So I had to adapt the leg of the other crane to match. Ah, design adjustments! I love 'em!

This wasn't the best piece of poplar that I've ever carved. It had a tendency to split out. When I was drilling the starts to the piercings around the cross a chunk about an eighth-of-an-inch thick split out directly across the left hand arm of the cross. That wasn't so terrible since I was going to relieve the cross anyway to put it behind the cranes.

You can see some striations on the top of the bowl, and could be forgiven for thinking it showed a split-out. But that part of the bowl is as fair and smooth as can be. It has to be something to do with that greenish-brown stripe, through nothing like that has happened before.

And here's what the back of the spoon looks like. I paid a little more attention this time to the guzunders and the guzovers.

So there you have it.

Until next time, when I hope to have more in-progress photos, let the chips fly!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T15:28:00.003-07:00

Merry Christmas to all! Thank you to all who have read my blog and especially to those who have chosen to leave comments. I want you all to know that among the many things I am thankful for, your attention is one of those.

And with that, a little Santa Show.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Birds & Fishes Lovespoon Finished -- Finally!

2009-12-20T12:13:00.003-07:00

I know, I know, I have neglected you, my faithful readers, horribly. My only excuse is that I was in production mode on my Santas, every spare moment devoted to that jolly old elf.

But now I'm back! Celebration abounds!

Or, maybe not.

In any case, I finally got the guts to finish the Birds & Fishes Lovespoon that I started way back in February. It was only my third lovespoon, and I think I got a little ambitious with the design. So, seven months, three lovespoons and innumerable Santas later I decided I was ready to finish it, and here is the result.

This photo shows what a dog's dinner I made of the back of the birds's necks, all through the mechanism of not paying attention, front to back, of the order of the goesovers to the goesunders.

This photo shows the front view of the birds.

Here's the lower part of the spoon.

And a detail of the bowl.

And an overall photo of the back of the spoon. Overall, not a bad effort, if I do say so myself. Even if it did take 7 months!

So I'm off on another woody adventure or two. I've already got the design for my next lovespoon transferred onto a blank, and I'm also playing with a design for a Woodworker's Chess set. I'm almost done with the first bishop, and I have designs for the pawns, knights and rooks. I'm dithering about the design of the king, and I have no idea what I'm going to do with the queen. Once I get one of each of the pieces carved, I'm going to post them and ask guidance for the queen's design. So keep on the lookout.

Until next time, let the chips fly!

It Ain't Fire Wood Redux

2009-10-25T10:04:00.012-06:00

We got some snow this week. I took a couple of pictures through the windshield of my car on my way to work just before sun-up.

The quality isn't the best, but you try taking a picture one handed through the windshield of your car! That white peak to the right in the first picture is Pike's Peak at 14,192'. Or something. It is one of the Fourteener's here in Colorado. If you look closely you can see the line on the mountains where the snow starts. That's about 8,000 feet.

I also did some reworking on last post's subject. I'll post the photo of the original next to the photo of the revised work.

It's amazing how little wood was taken off to produce this effect. I thinned down the nose and changed the profile of the bridge and elevated the tip a bit. I removed some wood between her mouth and her nose. I also altered the lower lip and took some shavings off the bottom of the chin. All the chips I removed could be put in a thimble with lots of room left over. She's still not as feminine as I would like, but good enough until the next one.

Currently I'm working on a new Santa ornament, a small male wood spirit and a very small tasting spoon. I'm using slightly different techniques on all of them. It'll be interesting to see how they turn out.

Until the, let the chips fly!

It Ain't Fire Wood 'Til It's Kindling!

2009-10-18T11:50:00.011-06:00

Fire wood is the term carvers and whittlers use to designate carvings that have gone wrong. Might as well use 'em for fire wood and get some utility out of 'em.

My view is that most carvings that go wrong can be saved with a little imagination, flexibility and perseverance. Witness my latest foray toward the female face.

As you can see, the eyes are a mess. The level of difficulty is a little higher on this one than on my last because of the hair drifting down over the face. Her right eye is partially covered and the space between the main hair falls is pretty narrow. This branch is about 4 inches long and about 1" in diameter. (And if anyone can identify the wood, I'd be most grateful.)

All of the carving up to this point was done with my self-modified Kissing Crane Four-Blade Congress pocket knife. It's a nice, well-built knife for $15, and performed admirably up to this point.

One of these days I'll get over being afraid of eyes, but that day ain't yet. I was too timid about the first set of eyes I gave her. They were too small and too shallow. I'll admit that I was also rather intimidated by the lack of space left by the hair. I could have redone the hair, but I wanted this kind of look, so I decided to redo the eyes. Lord knows there was enough wood left.

I couldn't get the pocket knife blades down in there at the angles I needed to make the cuts I wanted to make, so I switched over to my Ralph Long long knife. That narrow 2" blade was just what I needed. It may seem contra-intuitive that I needed a long blade to get into a tight spot, but the narrowness of the point and the curve of the blade allowed me to get down in there and cut around the eye without nicking (mostly) the eyebrows and hair.

I deepened the cuts above the eyes and moved the bottom of the lower lids much further south making them deeper as well. I used the very tip of the knife to make lots of very small chips while building the eye mounds.

While building the eye mounds I decided that a sleeping dryad fit this pose better, so I finished the eyes that way.

I think she turned out pretty well, but while looking at the photos I began to think she had a rather androgynous look. She could be either a pretty-boy rocker or a woman. I'm beginning to think it might have something to do with the lower lip where it meets the corners of the mouth. If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment.

Until next time, let the chips fly!

My First Woman -- Carving, That Is

2009-10-10T13:42:00.014-06:00

I've learned a lot about carving faces over the last couple of weeks. I had decided that I wanted to carve a female face. I happen to like women. A lot! So a female face was a natural subject for me. It only took me almost six decades to actually do it!

But just doing something I'd never done before wasn't enough for me. No, not only did I decide to go to the distaff side of subjects, I also decided I wanted to do her as a woodspirit. In found wood! Not even that was enough. I did her in seasoned found wood. Am I a glutton for punishment or what?

Of course I wanted to do a good job. I wanted to at least make her attractive, if not beautiful. Think dryad. So I had to do some studying. My first stop was Ian Norbury's book, Carving Classic Female Faces in Wood. Of course Norbury is a good carver (yeah, let's understate the thing just a bit), but his women are fantastic. So I spent a goodly amount of time poring over his step-by-step photos, learning what he did when. (The time I spent droo . . . um . . . studying the blown up photos of his model was purely research. Yep!) I must admit, though, that his slavish attention to perfect symmetry got on my nerves a bit.

Speaking of symmetry, or the lack thereof, my next stop was a Marv Kaisersatt study cast of a young woman. I made the mind-boggling discovery that Marv is no more wedded to bilateral symmetry than I am. I must make a small diversion here to explain how I went about studying the Kaisersatt cast.

One of the blogs I follow is Doug Stowe's "Wisdom of the Hands", an excellent blog about the role of the hands in education. One of his posts (I wish I could find it again) made the point that modern Man has effectively lost the ability to "see with the fingers". As a woodcarver/sculptor I took that to heart and decided to take the Kaisersatt cast into a dark room and study it with my fingers. It took me a while to get into the groove, but eventually what a revelation! I saw something with my fingers that I had never seen before while examining the cast visually. The left side of her face was off! I speculate that while messing with the hair, he carved off a little (actually more than a little) too much off the temple. Instead of coming down and merging more or less smoothly with the cheek bone as on the right side of her face, he left a shelf of cheekbone running back under her hair toward her ear. A not inconsiderable shelf even though I never noticed it until I took her into a dark room and ran my fingers over her face. (yeah, yeah, take your best shot!) Not only did he make that "mistake", he allowed it to be immortalized in a study cast! How's THAT for confidence!

Okay, okay, moving right along. The next place I went was Lynn Doughty's blog, Out West Wood Carving. Lynn, like Marv, is arguably one of the finest caricature carvers alive today. He's always been generous with his advice and has an extensive gallery of WIP photos of his pieces. Just recently he's begun posting tutorial videos, and during the last week or so has posted a series of videos showing how he carves a head and face. Absolutely first rate work! He does have a tendency to get between the camera and his carving, but his wife, who is both cameraman and director, doesn't let that last long. If you have ANY interest in carving faces, whether caricature or realistic, you MUST view that series.

So that's what I studied. And I got a lot out of all the sources. You've seen my starting point above. You'll notice that the face is very long and the brow comes out just as far as the tip of the nose. One of the things I picked up from the Kaisersatt cast and was echoed in the Norbury and Doughty materials was that the brow is typically farther in than the tip of the nose. This next photo shows that corrected.

This is a front view at the same stage of carving. The chin is still longer than I like, and the sketched-in eye is too high.

I was able to correct that, mostly. The rest of the photos are of the almost finished piece. The only think I lack is putting in the pupils.

She's pretty good, but I'm going to do better.

Until next time, let the chips fly!

The Beardless Wonder and The Fearless Wonder

2009-09-26T09:20:00.011-06:00

First, The Beardless Wonder. He's not my first beardless face, but he is my first beardless wood spirit done in found wood. He turned out nicely, but I did some things I'm going to do differently next time. They aren't mistakes, they're learning experiences!

Overall I'm pretty happy with this guy. The biggest improvement I think I could make is going deeper into the branch for the chin. Most people's profile shows a convex curve when drawn from the hairline to the tip of the nose to the tip of the chin.

The other thing I would do is move the smile line on the left side closer to the corner of the mouth and smooth out the transition up to the cheek.

And now for The Fearless Wonder. Now you have to remember that this guy doesn't exist, never has, living or dead, in reality or in effigy. We've all got a bit of fear when it comes to our work. As you may have noticed, I've been trying to get more emotion into my faces. As I was coming down to the finish line on Beardless here, I was really happy with the way he was turning out. I got to the place that the only thing I needed to do to call him finished was to cut in the eyebrows.

He sat around for a WEEK before I could bring myself to finish the eyebrows. I started thinking (and this is not unusual for me) that I was going to screw up the eyebrows and ruin the whole thing! Never mind that I know how to fix such a screw up. Never mind that I had already fixed several things in the carving that I didn't like at first. I was going to screw up the eyebrows and that would totally ruin the entire carving. Have you ever heard of such a ridiculous thing?

Now admittedly this comes as a result of some self-examination. I didn't think specifically or rationally that I was going to screw it up. This was all some sort of subliminal gut type of feeling that didn't come out until I sat staring at the eyebrowless wonder yesterday.

This isn't the first time this gut-delay has happened, nor is it the first time I've come to this particular realization. I've got a potentially beautiful lovespoon WIP laying around that I've been ignoring for almost a year. One day I'll work up the guts to finish it.

This is all to illustrate that we all have these kinds of feelings to one degree or another, and that it is OK to give in to them on occasion. But you have to recognize that there is no rational reason for feeling that way and that sooner or later, preferably sooner, you're going to have to bite the bullet and finish the damn thing!

Until next time, let the chips fly!

Sundry Sunday

2009-09-20T14:38:00.011-06:00

Welcome back friends and neighbors. I've spent the last couple of weeks doing different things and trying different techniques, so this blog post is something of a hodge-podge. First up is a little Celtic dragon I did for my daughter. She's going to make a pendant (or something) from it for her jewelry line.

The wood is 1/4" walnut that I got from Woodcraft. Walnut wasn't as hard to carve as I thought it would be. Of course it was only 1/4" thick so I wasn't taking off huge pieces. The only machine I used on this was a drill to start the piercings. Everything else, including rough shaping from the original square blank, was done with a knife. Could be better, but for a first effort, I'm rather pleased.

This wood spirit is the first I've ever done in found wood. As such it was something of a new experience. I believe the wood is aspen. I am not a student of plant life. I know there are two kinds of trees, deciduous and evergreen. Beyond that I'm pretty clueless.

I did this guy a little differently than the others I've done. I did the eyes the way Don Mertz, The Woodbee Carver, does in his tutorial. Then I used a round, negative space for the irises/pupils. I rather like the way it turned out. I also got a little more curvature on the dental mound than I usually get and got more of the nose on the face rather than sticking out in front of it. Still not quite where I want it, but getting better.

The next series of photos is of another technique I've picked up from Don, the Whittle Doodle.

A Whittle Doodle is just exactly what it says. It's a doodle for whittlers. Instead of doodling on a piece of paper with your pencil, you doodle on a piece of scrap wood with your knife. In this case it's a 2"x2"x2" block of basswood. It's a low-pressure way to practice since (unless you are Don) it's not meant to be seen by anyone else. As you can see, I screwed up the eye on the right royally, but I'm really happy with the way the nose turned out. You can also see that the regularity of my borders needs some work. I've still got a lot of room on this Doodle to play with. I'm going to keep at it until I've got every face full. It's going to be interesting when I get to the end-grain faces! That may take a while.

That's enough rambling for now. So, until next time, let the chips fly.

Many Mini Santas

2009-09-07T14:23:00.011-06:00

Christmas time is a-commin', so I'm starting to stock up on Santas. First up is my 2009 ornament. I try to do a different style of ornament every year. I'll do some of the old ones as well, but I introduce a new one annually.

These guys are carved from 1.5"x1.5"x4" basswood. They are carved "on the corner". that is, they are carved so that the nose is formed from a corner of the block. This is a technique to make getting the curvature of the face easier.

This year I'm also doing a limited edition of 5 sets of 5 different Santa miniatures. This Old World Santa will be the first figure in the sets. These are MINIATURES! They are carved from a 1"x1"x3" block of basswood and are NOT carved on the corner.

Minis are a lot of fun to do. Some people do this size of carving all the time. I tease Tom H all the time about how his carvings are so small I have a hard time seeing them, much less carving at that scale. And Don Mertz, The Woodbee Carver, has a whole "line" of carvings he calls Whittle Folk that are all about this size. This, however, is my first major foray into carving this small. I had to go out and buy some +3 reading glasses just to be able to see what I was doing! Gettin' old is hell, let me tell ya.

The knife is a Ralph E. Long Model WH-9 that I've modified to fit my druthers. The blade is about 1" long, and the point originally continued on up which put the tip of the knife about 3/16ths of an inch above the back of the blade where it joins the handle. That put the tip too high for me to use comfortably, so I took a diamond hone to it. I brought the point back down to where it is even with the back of the blade. This is one rockin' miniature knife!

I'm not real pleased with a couple of these guys. A couple of them are probably going to get recarved before long. Eyes at this scale are a real b. . . . . . challenge.

This next bunch was inspired by Don Mertz, again! He calls them Pin Heads because they are carved from the old-fashioned clothes pins that you can get from Hobby Lobby. I saw his, and I just HAD to try it!

I think the pins are made from beech, but I'm not totally sure. The ones I have are almost as easy to carve as basswood, but the wood is darker and has some dark spots in it. These pins are about 9/16" in diameter. Talk about a challenge! Especially the eyes! Never mind carving them, painting them is the real killer. If you click on the picture you'll see that the eyes on the two red-and-whites on the right are pretty wonky. I either need to make the eyes bigger or get a smaller toothpick (that being what I use to paint the eyes).

If you are interested in talking to Ralph about his knives, his email addy is RELDPL@embarqmail.com

And now for something completely different:

This woodspirit is carved from a birch dowel 1.5" in diameter by 6" long. I'm working on a step-by-step that will appear on this blog real soon now.

Until then, let the chips fly!

Do You Need a Gouge?

2009-08-20T08:50:00.002-06:00

Kari Hultman over on The Village Carpenter blog tweeted a question to me asking if I ever use gouges, saying that she had trouble figuring out how to make certain cuts with a knife.

Well, Kari, join the club!

No, I don't use gouges, and sometimes I have a lot of trouble figuring out how to make a cut. It involves a lot of twisting and turning the piece and seeing if the blade will fit and still have enough room to move. All the cuts are easier if you use a slicing action.

The absolute best woodcarving video I've ever seen regarding how to make the various knife cuts is "Figure Carving Scandinavian Style with Harley Refsal". If you want something for free, check out Arleen's videos or Gene Messer's videos on YouTube. Both are excellent carvers and instructors, and both are primarily knife carvers. I spend time watching them when I should be carving!

So, you don't really need gouges to do hand-held carving, but you may sometimes compromise a little on the final look of the piece. Frankly, I think the knife "compromise" looks just as good as a gouge cut.

So, until next time, let the chips fly!

Pocket Knife Mods & Minis

2009-08-16T19:34:00.009-06:00

OK, between Arleen's pocket knives and Don Mertz' Tinker Knives I decided I had to modify some pocket knives for carving. Yeah, I'm a knife freak. Any excuse to have another knife to play with is good.

So I went looking for a nice, cheap 3-blade stockman to experiment on. I found it at Sportsman's Warehouse: a Chinese-made stockman under the Winchester brand.

For a $15 knife this one is pretty good. Nice bone handle (or at least it looks like bone); fit and finish are a lot better than I would have expected for a knife of this price. While information on this knife is scant, I suspect that the steel is 420HC. In spite of the bad rap it has among the knife snobs, it's not a bad steel. It's capable of being hardened to a 57 on the Rockwell C scale (HRC57 or 57RC), which is about the minimum hardness you want in a carving knife. By the way, don't fall for the hoary old salesman's pitch that a knife holds an edge for a long time is also easy to resharpen. The knife that holds its edge a long time does so because the steel is hard. Hard steel is tough to resharpen. Period. End of story.

In any case 420HC has the compromise of being hard enough to give decent service without being too dificult to resharpen. Now, when you think about it, about the only time you should sharpen a carving knife is when you do physical damage to the blade. Normally stropping the blade about every half-hour or so during use should be about all the sharpening you need to do. I have some knives I haven't taken a stone to in almost two years.

To make a long story short (too late!) I wasn't too worried about the steel. I was more worried about the springs: that they were strong enough to keep the blades from closing too easily. Keep in mind that 99% of 3-blade stockman knives have no locking blades. Now since I never saw a locking blade knife until I was out of college, I know how to use a slipjoint knife safely. Slipjoints may not be a good choice for a knife novice. Nah, strike that. I was 8 years old when I got my first knife, and it was a slipjoint. I never had the knife close on my fingers (came close a couple of times; the accellerated heartbeat reminded me not to do that again). Become acquainted with the knife, opening and closing it until your fingers hurt. Then take small cuts and never try to force the blade through the wood. You'll be fine.

The blades you see in the photo above are not how they came from the factory. I used Arleen's method of sharpening to regrind the blades. Like virtually every factory knife that wasn't made in Scandinavia, the blades had a secondary bevel. I used 5" sanding disks in an electric drill to grind the sides of the blades to as near a straight line as I could get from the back of the knife to the edge. I started with 220-grit wet-dry sandpaper to do the main grinding, holding the blade to the sandpaper for a couple of seconds, the dipping the blade in a cup of ice water to keep the steel from overheating, then grinding again. I did this until the secondary bevel was gone. Then I sanded each blade with 400-grit, then 800-grit to take the scratches out. I finished off by stropping. I made the strop from a 5" circle cut from the back of a pad of yellow paper, used spray adhesive to mount it to the sanding pad, and loaded it with green polishing compound. I was able to get a very high polish on all the blades.

Then I got out the Dremel. With a grinding stone. The single blade on the left was a rather exaggerated spey pattern. I have come to really like the big sweep/sharp point profile, so I modified the blade to that profile. Touch blade to stone, dip blade in ice water, and repeat. At 30,000 rpm even that method doesn't take long. The shorter blade on the right started out as a sheepsfoot pattern. I'm slowly working it into a Wharncliffe. I left the main clip blade the same profile, though at 2.5" it is longer than I like. Once I get the Wharncliffe profile where I want it, I'll probably work on shortening the clip blade.

One more thing before I tell you the results so far, if you choose to do this, expect to have the blade edge roll on you the first time you use it. That's because the steel isn't hard enough to support the scandi-type edge at such an acute angle. A couple of good stroppings will put enough of a micro bevel on it so that the edge won't roll.

So, how did it work? I used the ex-spey blade to do these two 3" tall Santas. In case you can't tell, one of them isn't finished. The knife worked like a champ! It's not a Ralph Long knife, but it's usable.

I gotta tell ya, carving these little guys scares the peewaddin outa me! (That was a phrase of my mother's, a genteel Southern lady by all accounts; if someone could tell me what "peewaddin" is (come on, Thomp, Tom, Gene), I'd greatly appreciate it.) Not because I'm afraid I'll get cut. Got over that a LONG time ago, but because taking off a 5-thousandths of an inch shaving (yes, I measured; I'm an engineer; get over it) in the wrong place could be enough to convert a nice little miniature into fire . . . . um, kindling. Maybe once I've done 1000 of them, like Tom, I'll get over bein' afeerd.

Until next time, let the chips fly!

A Tale of Two Santas -- Continued

2009-08-03T20:13:00.013-06:00

OK, I'm not sure whether Blogger is behaving itself better tonight or not, but here goes.

These are some in-process photos I took of the second Santa you saw yesterday. For the most part I'm going to let the photos speak for themselves. If you have any questions about any of them, just leave a comment, and I'll do my best to answer.

Now this last photo is to show the versatility of the Long knife. I carve both of these Santas, one 3" tall and one 6" tall, using only the Long knife. I'll have more about the little guy later. Until then, let the chips fly!

A Tale of Two Santas, or Practice Makes . . . um . . . Better

2009-08-02T17:50:00.008-06:00

I was talking with Don Mertz, The Woodbee Carver, about the shortcomings of my Old World Santa, the guy on the left with the lantern and the staff. It started out with a discussion of how to make a normally sober-sided old world Santa into a smiling Santa. I worked that out with Don's help and carved the guy on the left. I wasn't satisfied with the hands and arms. I always carve the hands too small. Don advised me to jump right in and carve another OWS and consiously try to make the hands too big. Thus, the guy on the right. This was my first attempt at doing hands with fingers. Turned out OK, I think. Hands still aren't big enough, but I'm getting there.

I learned something else while doing the second OWS. Actually I knew it all along, I just had never made it happen before. Compare the two profiles, particularly the nose and below. The first guy, on the left, I did as I have done all of my figures before: I made a straight, deep cut into the corner of the block to define the bottom of the nose. As I have mentioned before the face in profile should have approximately half of the nose behind where the filtrum (goove in the middle of the upper lip) and the septum (division between the two nostrils) meet. You can clearly see that this does not occur in OWS #1 due to the way I started the nose. On OWS #2, instead of cutting straight back, I cut into the corner less deeply and rocked the blade from side to side making deeper cuts on either side of the corner. This allows for the establishment of the dental mound prior to any detail carving and makes proper placement of the nose easier.

I had intended to make this post longer, with in-process photos, but Blogger is acting hinky, so I'll post what I have now and continue the post tomorrow.

Meantime, let the chips fly!

Magical Knives, or Wish in One Hand . . . .

2009-07-19T18:38:00.007-06:00

Back a couple of weeks ago on "Beginner's Carving Corner and Beyond", Tom Hines asked the musical question, "Does anyone have any magical knives?" Or something similar. I responded that I had a box full of magical knives, whereupon he responded with another post laying out a list of qualities that a magical knife might have. He must have been reading my mind!

As background for all this, let me start up the Wayback Machine and take you back in time about 15 years. This happened in Albuquerque. It was a lovely spring day, and I made the ill-considered decision to take my wife with me to an outdoors carving show on the University of New Mexico campus. There were a lot of excellent carvers there, but I only remember one. He was in his mid-thirties, I'd guess, and was a wonderful carver. We complemented his work, and I asked him what kind of knives he used. He snapped open a beat-up leather pouch on his belt and pulled out an old Buck Folding Hunter. The original 4-inch blade had been sharpened down to a little less than half that size. It was now an odd shape that I couldn't begin to describe. "This is it," he said. "This is the only knife I use. It does everything I need it to do." That was his magic knife. We'll come back to him a little later.

These are the first of my magical knives.They are called "Harley" knives. They are made and sold by Del Stubbs of Pinewood Forge. They start off life as a Frost's Pattern #122 from Sweden. Del takes them and regrinds the blade from a 20 degree angle down to a 12 degree angle. They are made specifically for Scandinavian Flat Plane carving in basswood and are named after Harley Refsal, probably the foremost practitioner of SFP carving on the North American Continent. For their purpose these knives are truly magical. They drift through basswood with hardly any drag at all. But don't use them to pry and don't use them on anything harder than butternut. Those edges will kink at the least excuse. I know! But for carving Uncle Ira up there, they are worth their weight in gold.

These are a couple of knives made by Carl Johnson. They are magical because they allow me to carve Celtic knots without a scroll saw. All I have to do is drill a 1/8" diameter hole, and I'm off to the races. They are not so magical for removing large amounts of wood, however. Sorry, Carl.

Here's another pair of Del Stubbs knives that I consider magical. These are his regular sloyd and his short sloyd. He also makes a straight sloyd, a skinny sloyd and an extra long sloyd. I wish he'd quit coming up with new knives. I already have a drawer with nothing but his knives in it. If he makes any more, I'm going to have to clean out another drawer for the overflow! These knives are sharp and pointy without being delicate. They are perfect for wood spirits and spoons.

Now here is my latest magical knife. It's made by Ralph E. Long and is called the WH-8. I was introduced to this knife by Don Mertz, the Woodbee Carver. After seeing the post where he used this knife alone to carve a very detailed pirate, I had to give it a try. I carved that Santa using only the Long knife. The blade is whisper thin. I measured 58-thousands of an inch thick at the handle and tapers to nothing at the edge and the point. If the Harley knives drift through basswood, this Long knife (I LOVE saying that!) falls through it. And like the Harley knives, don't twist, don't flick, don't pry! But the shape of the blade is what makes it magical. I could do things with this knife I didn't think were possible. It excells at getting into tight spots. Plus the curvature of the blade keeps the heel of the edge out of the way when you are using the point, and keeps the point out of the way when you are using the heel. A wonderful knife -- as long as you don't try to use it on maple.

Well, I promised you that we'd come back to that New Mexico carver with the Buck Folding Hunter, and here we are. Remember I said I'd made an ill-considered decision to bring my wife along to the carving show? Ever since that day, about every three weeks on average, she says to me, "Why do you need all these knives? Why can't you do like that guy in New Mexico and just use one knife?"

Within the answer to that question lies the point of this whole ramble. You can be a one-knife carver if all you do is one style of carving. If you want to do SFP and wood spirits and spoons and Welsh lovespoons and want to do them with the minimum amount of frustration, you need more than one knife. Because there is no one, magical, do-all knife.

So indulge yourselves. Go out and buy 20 or 30 knives. You'll feel better!

Until next time, let the chips fly!

Of Faces. And Hair. And Hair on Faces.

2009-07-06T21:14:00.009-06:00

So, here we are again talking about faces. Faces are endlessly fascinating. Human beings are, for one reason or another, hardwired to see faces in the most simplistic forms, i.e., :). This gives the carver virtually unlimited license in how to do them. And with all that I still find myself qvetsching about stuff I do.

I'm going to show you two similar Santa busts. (I REALLY have to start remembering to take photos during the WHOLE process of carving.) The first is one I did a couple of months ago.

Now, I'm pretty happy with this guy. The eyes are the most stylized part of his face, but they don't look bad.

This Santa, I've just finished. I'm not so happy with his eyes. Unfortunately I didn't see it until I had painted the piece. (That happens more often than I'd like.)

I know exactly why the eyes don't do it for me. They are too low in the face. In most human faces the eye is farther up on the slope of the eye socket so that the lower eyelid extends deeper into the face than the upper. Also the open eye isn't round enough.

I know. Qvetsch, complain, bitch, and moan! It's not perfect, but it's pretty good, overall.

I don't do this to elicit sympathy. "Ach, Bobby, Bobby. 'Tis nae s'bad." (I must be channeling John!) I do it to show other carvers (you, maybe?) that such things are not fatal flaws. I have no doubt that this guy will sell just as fast as the first one did.

But here I would like to get your opinions on the beard. The beard on the first Santa I did with my knife. On the second Santa I textured the beard with a small gouge. Which of the two do you like better? Please leave a comment to let me know what you think.

As one last illustration of my inability to see things before they're painted, I offer a mini-mask I did.

The mouth is great. The nose and chin, I'm happy with. I considered this to be the best face I've ever done. Until I started painting in the pupils. One eye is higher than the other. D'oh!

Oh, well. It probably is still the best face I've ever done. So far.

So I hope I've helped some of you to understand that perfection is not required. You can always change it on the next one!

Until next time, let the chips fly!

Long, Tall Santy -- A Rescue

2009-06-28T19:06:00.008-06:00

This is a rescue project. I started Long, Tall Santy about a year ago, and gave up on him because his eyes were too shallow, and wonky besides. He had a tassell on his hat that . . . well, words fail me. His mouth was lopsided, and I had no idea what I was going to do with his beard.

He started out as a 2"x2"x12" block of basswood. He came real close to being firewood!

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of what he looked like before I started the rescue work. Or maybe it's not so unfortunate. It was pretty bad.

Santy here is a take-off on an Old-World Santa. You can tell by the monkish attire and the super-long beard. Most Old-World Santas are rather sober old so-and-sos, hardly a smile to be had among them.

I like happy Santas. He should be happy and mischievous. Since LTS here already had a lopsided mouth, I decided to make him wink, thus the raised moustache on his left side.

To correct the eyes, I simply scooped them out with one of my bent knives and started over. To do a wink you need to scrunch up the face on the side of the winking eye. Still haven't quite got it yet, but it's not bad.

I wanted to narrow the beard a bit to show the front of his arms.

I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I regretted it though. Trying to get a knife into that narrow space to clean up the cuts was almost impossible. There simply was no room to roll the knife blade.

Yeah, yeah, I know: use a gouge. Well, I did, but I wasn't happy about it.

It just seems like cheating, somehow. I didn't even use a gouge to do the texturing on the fur trim of his robe and cap. I just used a rolling/slicing cut with my new Carl Johnson blade. Worked out very nicely, I think.

So here he is in all his glory!

The painting isn't my favorite thing to do. It's not as much fun as carving, but it really does make this type of sculpture stand out.

At this point I have no idea what I'm going to talk about next time. Maybe a flute. Hah! Bet you didn't expect that one! But maybe not.

Until next time, let the chips fly!

Eagle Lovespoon Finished -- At Last

2009-06-21T16:30:00.010-06:00

Finally I got up the gumption to finish the Eagle Lovespoon. Took long enough!

For those of you, like me, who have forgotten what the earlier photos looked like, you can go here and here.

So, when we last saw this spoon, about all I had left to do was to finish the kissing cranes, clean up the back and do a general cleanup overall. Carving the cranes went amazingly well. I was working on the very last piercing and had not broken anything! I was thinking, "By golly, I'm going to get through this whole spoon without a single break! Whereupon I broke it.

Aaarrgh! The knife slipped, went right through the neck and twisted breaking the neck in multiple pieces. Small pieces. My wife stopped me from head-butting the wall before I put a dent in it -- the wall, not my head. I was able to find enough of the pieces to put it back together with "The Carver's Best Friend", superglue.

After that, things went swimmingly.

As you can see, the only carving I did on the back of the spoon was on the clover leaves/hearts. The rest I just smoothed out with my knife and champfered the edges to give it a finished look. As with all my work I stayed well away from the devil's paper. The finish is straight from the knife. The "finish" was a coating of Williamsville Wax worked into the nooks and crannys with a toothbrush and a soft cloth.

So there you have it. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be due in large part to the knives made by my friend Carl Johnson, the Carver/Tuner From Nowhere.

Since I don't use a scroll saw to do the piercings, using only knives, my ability to do the knotwork like in the cranes necks would be severely limited if not impossible without these "micro" detail knives. So a big thanks to Carl.

Until next time, let the chips fly!

Rat-Tail Joe Explains Why Mesquite Is Hard

2009-06-14T13:05:00.003-06:00

Suddenly one day last week I got the urge to carve a Pueblo-style bear fetish from mesquite wood.

Yeah, I know, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Here is a photo of the finished piece along with the knife I used and some representative shavings that I produced while carving this fetish.

Those of you with a sharp eye and a good memory (neither of which I possess) may note that the heart line of the fetish is backwards. The reason for this is so that if this ever leaves my possession any knowledgeable collector will know it was carved by a non-Indian.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! (Hope that doesn't mean a curse or something!)

Moving right along! As you can see from the size of the chips, mesquite is a very hard wood. This wood has been seasoned for at least two decades, but even green, mesquite is nothing to take lightly. For my money, there's not a nickel's worth of difference between mesquite and rock maple. Mesquite is as hard as a spurned woman's heart.

Which leads me to the story of why mesquite is so hard.

I grew up in a small town of 5,000 people in the geographic heart of Texas. I've carried a knife daily since I was about 7 years old. Every day since then I've awakened in the morning, put on my pants and stuck a knife in my pocket, as did every boy I grew up with. We all brought our knives to school, and we never tried to hurt another living being with them.

A boy with a knife whittles. That's a fact of life. And the most abundant whittling wood in central Texas is mesquite. Even us kids, not noticing the blinding sun, the sweltering heat, or the gritty sandstorms noticed that mesquite was hard.

Being a curious sort, I asked every adult I knew, "Why is mesquite hard?" Most of the farmers and ranchers attributed the hardness, along with it's abundance and nuisance factor, to the Devil's sense of humor. Most other folk just shrugged their shoulders.

One day when I was about 8 or 9, in the late 1950s, I thought to ask the fount of all knowledge natural: Rat-Tail Joe. Rat-Tail Joe was an Indian, a full-blood Comanche, and he looked it. Round face, craggy features, prominant nose, dark skin. He was an oil-field worker when he worked, which was about six months out of the year. During the winter, he wasn't around. Some said he went to visit relatives on the reservation up north of Lawton, Oklahoma. Most of us kids speculated that he was down in Mexico, raiding small settlements.

He was called Rat-Tail Joe because he wore his hair in a tightly woven braided pony-tail that reached down below his shoulder blades. Now, you've gotta remember the time and place. Any man who wore his hair in a pony-tail would have been subjected to constant harrassment and would have been called names a lot less flattering than Rat-Tail. Nobody bothered Rat-Tail Joe. Nobody even called him Rat-Tail to his face. As far as I know, he never caused any trouble, but no one messed with him.

When he was in town, he'd go to the drug store (it had a fountain, like every other drugstore at the time), have an ice-cream float, then sit out on the side walk and whittle for an hour or so. He'd carve small animals, always out of mesquite.

One day, I screwed my courage to the sticking point (that took some doing, let me tell you) and walked up to him. "Mr. Joe," I said, "do you know why mesquite is so hard?"

He looked at me with those obsidian eyes for so long I was about to either wet my pants or take off running. Or both. Finally he nodded to the sidewalk beside him. I sat down. He rummaged around in his pocket and handed me a small piece of mesquite cut from a limb. I got out my pocket knife and started cutting on the wood. He started talking.

It happened a long time ago, he said, long before the coming of the White Man, not long after The People came to this land. There was a woman called Slender Tree. She was the most beautiful woman of The People. All the young warriors trailed along after her like puppies, yipping and nipping at each other, trying to attract her attention. She would occasionally favor one of the young men with her attentions, but not for long.

It seems that she was not a nice person. Slender Tree recognized her beauty and let it go to her head. She was demanding, ill-tempered and capricious. She used the young warriors to feed her pride and then discarded them. This went on for many years until she was older than all the warriors in the puppy-pack that followed her. All the men her own age had finally recognized her for what she was and had gone on to take wives and have children.

Slender Tree saw her youth slipping away from her. Her father was getting impatient. She needed to find a husband and settle down, or he'd be saddled with her for the rest of his life. For her part, she was no more anxious to spend the rest of her life in her father's tipi than he was. So she began casting around for a husband. Unfortunately for her, all the desirable men in her band of The People knew her for what she was. (Later on in life, I discovered her like in a character named Kate in a play by some guy called Shakespeare.)

One day a council of all the neighboring bands of The People was called. Suddenly Slender Tree's camp was filled with with hundreds of young men. These were warriors who had proven themselves and had many ponies. Most important of all, they didn't know Slender Tree. So she began to hunt in earnest. This might be her last chance to marry well.

Among the visitors was a man named Standing Bear. He was young, but in spite of his youth he was known as a great warrior. He had led many raids against the Kiowa in which he had stolen many ponies and taken several captives. He was also being trained to be a medicine man and would have a seat with the Elders in the council. It was said that the Great Spirit had spoken to him and told him he was to be a powerful man who would lead his people to greatness.

He was perfect!

Slender Tree focused all her attention on Standing Bear. Such attention from such a beautiful woman is a heady thing. Standing Bear was swept off his feet. It only took a few days for Slender Tree to become confident that she had hooked and landed the biggest fish of her life.

Unfortunately for her, not only was Standing Bear a great warrior, he was also an intelligent and perceptive man. About the time Slender Tree was becoming confident she had him hooked, he was becoming attracted to another maiden in the camp, Wind Song.

Being a decent sort, Standing Bear told Slender Tree that she was not the light of his life, and he hoped she would find a suitable match. Soon.

Slender Tree flew into a rage. No one treated her that way! She ranted and raved. Being an Indian male, Standing Bear ignored her and walked away.

Slender Tree was desperate. The council was almost over. In a couple of days, Standing Bear would leave the camp. It didn't help any that her father beat her for failing to capture Standing Bear's heart. That would have been a real feather in his cap, so to speak.

For a while, Slender Tree fumed and sputtered. Then a plan formed in her mind. She would visit Standing Bear's tipi in the night. She would seduce him. Once she had made love to him, he would be hers forever.

So, late that night, after the moon had set, Slender Tree left her father's tipi and slipped through the sleeping camp to where Standing Bear had pitched his tent. She slipped through the flap, but instead of finding Standing Bear alone, she saw him asleep with his arm around Wind Song.

That was the last straw. Humiliated, Slender Tree drew her knife, jumped upon Standing Bear and stabbed him in the heart. She then turned to the screaming Wind Song and slit her throat. By this time the camp was aroused, but deep in confusion. She cut a slit in the back of the tent and slipped out into the darkness, intending to circle the camp and pretend to be as horrified as everyone else.

While making her way through the black night, Slender Tree turned her ankle on a fallen branch and plummeted into a small ravine, hitting her head on a rock. In her semi-conscious state the Great Spirit came and spoke to her.

"You have angered me greatly, Daughter," said the Great Spirit. "Standing Bear would have made your people the most powerful in the land. Now he is dead, at your hand. You must be punished."

"But you are the Great Spirit. Can you not make another warrior to take his place?"

"No, Daughter. The tree has many branches, and now your people must follow a different path. As must you. From this day on your spirit will inhabit the most abundant tree in the land. It's wood will be beautiful, and all men will desire it. But it's heart will be hard, too hard for men to bend to their will. It will seduce the cattle to eat from it instead of the life-giving grass. It will grow so thickly that it will impede The People in their travels and their hunting. It will be good for nothing but burning."

And thus the Great Spirit made it so. From that day on, the mesquite tree has been the bane of those who would live in the land of The People.

And so you have it. The true story of the mesquite tree and why it's wood is hard. Or not.

Enough rambling for one day! Until next time, let the chips fly!

Another Face -- Elves on the Loose! Part 2

2009-06-10T21:16:00.011-06:00

OK, now where was I?

Oh, yeah. Now I remember. Eyes and stuff.

Here I've done the other eye mound, just like I did the first, cut down from about the center line of where you want the eye mound to be, then cut up from the cheek. I've done a little more rounding of the face and narrowing of the head above the cheeks. I've also evened up the jaw line and started hollowing below the cheek "bone". I haven't yet started putting any detail into the ears.

And, here we have a profile view of this stage. You can clearly see the curve of the cheek here. If you run your finger alongside your nose from the nostril up to your eye you can feel the rise up to the cheek bone and down into the eye socket. You can also feel that there is a valley between the side of your nose and the peak of the cheek bone. If you look below the nose you can see where I goofed here. Put your finger up under your nose where its septum meets the upper lip. No, not in your nose, under your nose. Didn't your mother teach you anything?

Ahem, now run your finger along your upper lip until you reach the end of your nose wing, either one. Feel how your upper lip curves into your face. That's called the dental mound. In a profile view your upper lip reaches your nasal septum about half the distance between the tip of your nose and the end of the nose wing. I didn't make my dental mound round enough which means I didn't make my smile lines deep enough. Remember how I warned you about that? Do as I say, not as I do!

Here I have drawn in pencil the lines for the smiley squint and the smiling mouth.

And here I have cut them in with v-cuts using the tip of my knife. I've also reduced the height of the chin (something I should have done earlier) and defined the lower lip by using a rolling-slicing cut with the tip of my knife.

And here's a slightly different view.

Voila! The finished product. Yes, Ethan, I know. I didn't show progress photos of the ears. Sorry, pard. I just got carried away as I got closer to finishing. But, as I've been saying, the ears are pretty trivial. Compare the photo above to this one. All I did was make two small stop cuts forming a triangle into the ear at the midpoint of the ear where it joins the side of the face. I put the point of my knife at the bottom of the bottom stop cut where it joins the face, slanted my knife until the cutting edge was a little bit (I love precise, technical terms!) above the bottom of the ear, then swung my knife around cutting a dish into the ear and leaving a consistent border around the edge until I reached the top. By this time the point of my knife was at the apex of the triangle at the center of the ear. I repositioned the blade so that I could cut down to the face and maintain the pointed ear and cut, removing the chip that gave me the interior of the ear. It sounds harder than it is.

I've also put some wrinkles in the cap using rolling-slicing motions with my knife. No gouges were used in the making of this ornament. Some carvers, some very, very good carvers, use a v-tool to texture hair and beards. I don't. (What a surprise, huh?) They're a lot faster at the job, but I don't feel they leave enough of a shadow. I cut straight down into the wood and then finish the "v" by cutting at an angle to meet the bottom of the first cut. I vary the side of the first cut that I make the angle cut so that no matter where the light is coming from, you will still see some shadows.

Compare this profile shot with the one above. I've reduced the brow to a more reasonable profile. You can also see how I lowered the tip of the chin. The dental mound is there, just not as pronounced as it should be. I probably should have either dished out the area between the tip of the chin and the lower lip more or reduced the height of the chin more, but, ce la vie! There is room for improvement, but, all in all, not a bad result.

Feel free to criticize or give me tips for improvement. I'm always looking for ways to improve.

So, until next time, let the chips fly!

Another Face -- Elves on the Loose!

2009-06-07T18:09:00.010-06:00

Sean wanted to see more step-by-step photos of the way I do a face, so, since I am trying to build up inventory at the store that sells my ornaments, I decided to do my second elf ever. I gotta tell ya, taking all these photos was tough! Just as I'd get started good and get into the groove, crap! Gotta stop and take a photo. Very disruptive! But, anything for my peeps!

The first thing I do is sketch out the face on a block of wood. This began as a 1.5"x1.5"x6" piece of basswood. As you can tell more clearly from the second photo I ripped the block down a diagonal to come out with two triangular pieces of wood. I do this on anything over 1" that will be hanging on a tree to save weight. You don't want the ornament to tip the tree over! You can click on the photos to get a full-sized view. I've labeled the brow, the cheek and the bottom of the nose.

Here I've trimmed down the the main outline with my knife and started establishing the depth of the main features of the face. I left all that wood below the chin for the beard. At this point I haven't decided what it will look like.

Here's the profile view.

Here I've established the position of the eyes by plunging my knife down alongside the nose and cut up. Where the nose changes into the brow I moved the handle of my knife down to fix the slope from the brow down to the eye. I next cut up along the cheek line to meet the bottom of the nose/brow cut. You'll notice that there really isn't enough room between the cheek cut and the brow cut to place the eyes. The reason for that is that the top of the cheek cut will form the top of the eye mound. I've also made a small v-cut along the jaw line with my knife. I don't make this too deep because I may want to change it later as the rest of the face develops.

I've also started working on the ears. I try to move around on the face and not work too long on any one feature. I find that if I stop working on one feature to work on another, when I go back to the first feature my perspective is refreshed, and I can see things I might not have seen otherwise. As you can see, the ears are pretty simple. They are just one letter "C" after another.

Here you can see I've started defining the nostrils and the smile line. The smile line is important, because if it's not deep enough, the lower face will be flat. I've also started rounding the upper part of the face by carving wood away in front of the ear.

Here I've defined both nose wings and both smile lines. I've also defined the left eye mound. You can see by looking at the right side of the face that the top of the eye mound is the top of the cheek cut. I come down about half the distance I want to be the height of the eye mound, then cut down toward the cheek and up from the cheek toward the bottom of the eye. I've also started hollowing out below the cheek bone, and, if you'll compare the left side of the chin to the right side, you'll see that I've been refining the jaw line from where I originally drew it. That's why I didn't cut that line too deeply to begin with.

I have done all this carving with just my Harley knife, the knife pictured alongside the other elf in the previous post. Of course you could do this just as well, or maybe better, with a handful of chisels and gouges, but the knife is my preferred tool. Call it a quirk.

Well, this post has gotten awfully photo-heavy, so in the interest of keeping load times down, I'm going to break off here and continue in the next post, which, with any luck, will be within the next couple of days.

So, until then, let the chips fly!

New Way of Carving Faces

2009-05-31T15:11:00.014-06:00

Last time I mentioned that while carving at Territory Days I tried a new way of carving faces that I like better. I almost always carve faces "on the corner", that is, with one corner of the block being the nose. I used to start with roughing out the nose, then move to rough out the eyes, then the mouth, THEN start to establish the width and depth of the head. I have now started to change the way I do things. I still begin with establishing the position of the nose and build the face around that. But now I establish the width and depth of the head before I begin on the eyes.

Those of you with sharp eyes will notice that this elf is being carved in Spanish cedar. "What?" you say. "Spanish cedar! Are you nuts? Don't you know that Spanish cedar DOES NOT HOLD DETAILS WELL?"

Well, yeah. I know that. But it was what was close to hand, and, since this was pretty much an experiment with new work methods, I figured that if I FUBAR'ed it I could blame the wood. And if I screwed it up just a little I could use the grain to hide the "design adjustment". So sue me!

Oh, by the way, this is my first elf. Talk about a glutton for punishment!

As it turned out, it wasn't all that bad. Sharp knives and tiny, tiny chips will allow you to carve in almost anything if you have the patience. Besides, I'm the kind of guy who is apt to say, "What the hell, let's try it and see what happens!" (See Kari Hultman's blog post on that kind of attitude and it's gender implications.)

I also changed the way I do eyes. I normally use a straight "v" cut to establish the eye channels and refine from there. Here I have used a method similar to what Tom Hines uses. I made a stop cut alongside the bridge of the nose with the blade at a slight angle away from the center of the face (to establish the side slope of the nose), moved the blade up until it was almost vertical as I reached the beginning of the eyebrow, and then slanted the knife blade towards the bottom of the face to establish the slope of the upper part of the eye socket. I then started the second cut with the blade at a pretty acute angle up toward the top of the face at the beginning of the previous stop cut. I continued the cut up and around the top of the cheek trying to meet the previous stop cut. When the chip pops out you have established the upper slope of the eye socket and the upper slope of the cheek. Then (particularly if you are working with cedar) you take tiny, tiny chips out of the upper slope of the cheek, increasing that and defining the lower curve of the eye mound. You can see that in the four photos above. I hope. (Click on a photo to get a full size version.)

The point of all this change is that by rounding the face before hand and doing the eyes this way, I seem to be able to be more consistent in forming the eye mounds leaving me more leeway in how I choose to finish the eyes, whether open, winking, or happy squint as I have here.

(BTW, that wispy thing clinging to the elf's hat is NOT a cat hair. No. Absolutely not. It is, in fact, an artifact on the film . . . uh . . . digital imager. Yeah. That's it! An artifact. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

Which brings me back to Spanish cedar. You can carve it. I made several boo-boos that cost me a chunk of the nose and another chunk of the beard (such as it is). I was able to save the piece with two strategies: Start off making things a little bigger than they need to be; cut tiny, tiny chips with a very sharp knife while you are doing details. Because, EVERYONE knows that cedar DOES NOT HOLD DETAILS WELL!. Well, almost everyone.

Speaking of eyes, I do several different types. Probably not good for my "brand", but it keeps me interested. The eyes on the Santa are a type most often seen on Scandinavian Flat Plane figures. Four cuts and pop out a chip. Careful not to pop out the wrong one!

Well, I think I've rambled enough for one day. Until next time, when we get back to the lovespoon (I hope), let the chips fly!

Territory Days!

2009-05-25T16:57:00.010-06:00

Well, Territory Days have come and gone, and, boy, were they wet! It rained every day, but it didn't seem to "dampen" [heh] the enthusiasm of the crowds. They'd find shelter while it was raining, then, when it quit, they were back out on the street.

Territory Days is a street festival sponsored by the Merchant's Association of Old Colorado City, the touristy section of Colorado Springs. It was once it's own entity before Colorado Springs grew enough to gobble it up. Every Memorial Day weekend for the last 34 years they have blocked off the main street for 7 blocks, and set up a double row of vendors tents down the center of the street. There are a couple of stages for musicians, jugglers, and enough food stalls that if you wanted to eat at all of them, you'd have to have 9 meals a day each of the three days!

I was set up outside a store called Handmade Santas & More. This store sells all the Santas I can make. The lady that owns the store, Melanie De Shon, makes very ornate Santa dolls some of which stand 18" tall and sell for $400! My stuff goes for pocket change, comparably.

Someone from the Merchant's Association was going around encouraging people who dressed the part. The guy gave me a lump of peanut butter fudge for having the best "costume" he'd seen all day. Trouble was, I wasn't wearing a costume! That's how I dress when I'm not at work. Oh well, the fudge was good.

Those pictures are to prove that I didn't just sit around looking pretty! I was working! Unfortunately when I work I go into a sort of zen state wherein about the only things that move are my hands. I can do that for hours! Given the fact that I was sitting in a chair that was probably made around the turn of the (20th!) century, that wasn't such a good idea. By the time I finally got up to move around, I was so stiff that I felt as old as I look!

But it was fun. Several of the tourists asked to take my picture. One little boy, looked about two years old, must have been absolutely convinced I was Santa himself, though strangely dressed. He must have stood there for a good five minutes just staring at me while his parents ate funnel cakes.

In addition, I learned a few things. I found that carving away from home base, and in public, opens you up to new ways of doing things. Since I didn't want to have to keep up with my tool box with all the people around, I "only" brought four knives and a strop in a canvas bag along with the wood. The second day I accidentally left my detail knife at home. That forced me to discover that I can do everything with my 2-1/2" Harley that I can do with my 1" Flexcut, just not quite as quickly. At least as far as Santas go. I did have to modify the way I do my faces, but I like the new method better!

It was a terrific weekend, and I plan to do it again several times this summer.

So, have fun, and, until next time, let the chips fly!

Understanding Lovespoons and The Weekend

2009-05-22T21:07:00.003-06:00

If you really want to understand lovespoons go read Dave Western's latest blog post. If I am half as insightful and technically advanced as this man is before I kick the bucket, I'll die a happy man.

This weekend Colorado Springs is hosting Territory Days, the kickoff to the tourist season. I'm going to be demonstrating carving Santa Claus outside a store called Handmade Santas & More. That's the store that sells most of my Santa output. I would have posted a Santa Photo, but I don't have any on this computer, so I opted for old Wetfoot up there. In any case, it should be fun. I'll post some pictures if I can remember to take my camera with me. Probably won't have much time to work on the lovespoon.

Until next time, let the chips fly!

Eagle Lovespoon, New Bowl and Whale-Fish with Teeth . . . uh . . . Tooth

2009-05-18T05:57:00.010-06:00

Can you say "unrealistic expectations"?

I knew you could.

Last week I said the Eagle Lovespoon would be finished by now. It's not. It's taking just a leeetle bit more time than I anticipated. Part of that was the fear and uncertainty I was feeling over doing the eagle. As splintery as this piece of wood is, I was really afraid the chip carving would be a disaster.

It wasn't. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't a disaster. I was able to clean up all the breakouts without too much trouble. All it took was patience.

I also started relieving the frame around the hearts to bring up the kissing cranes' beaks. The cranes are my next challenge. Once I get them done I'll start on the back. I'm not going to go into anywhere near the detail I've done on the front, but I'm going to clean things up and round them off. If I didn't the spoon would look more like a casting than something carved. More to come.

This is my new bowl, carved from one of those green aspen branches I got a few weeks ago. Being green wood, this one carved very quickly. About the only difficulty I had was in dishing out the outside of the bowl without the blade of my knife catching and chattering.
I thought the design was fairly successful.

I particularly like the way the heartwood goes through the base of the bowl. What do you think?

Hooray! The whale-fish has his tooth! I got the blades from Mike at Preferred Edge this week, and was so anxious to try it out I had to neglect the Eagle Lovespoon and mount the blade. Not that it took all that long.

I traced the outline of the shank of the blade onto the handle, and cut inside the lines with my detail knife. Then I cut out between the lines with a small chisel and one of my other bent knives. The fit wasn't perfect and I need to do better at cleaning up the epoxy, but this was the first time I've ever done this. Overall, not bad. And it cuts like a dream. That larger blade really makes a difference when you need to move a lot of wood. The handle is comfortable, too. The tail makes for the perfect place for my thumb. I'm a happy camper!

Next time, more progress on the Eagle Lovespoon and maybe a bowl or two. Gotta use that new knife!

Until then, let the chips fly!

Whale-fish Redux and Eagle Lovespoon

2009-05-10T18:07:00.013-06:00

You see, Kari, I told you the whale-fish was coming back for another sitting. This time he brought both his uppers and his lowers! He's so much more impressive now that he looks like he could do more than just gum you to death. :)

The knife blades didn't come in this week, so I can't finish the knife yet, but stay tuned. It promises to be something of a challenge.

A few weeks ago I had a post about the evolution of a lovespoon design. I finally got around to starting the pattern I came up with. I first transferred the pattern onto a piece of alder and started drilling out all the places that would be pierced as well as a couple of places outside the pattern that would allow me to decrease the time it would take me to cut down to the outline.

I finally found my old Stanley egg-beater drill again, and drilled all the holes with that instead of the power drill. Call it a quirk. Actually, I discovered, after I learned to use it all over again, that it took no longer to drill a hole with the egg-beater than it did with the power drill -- as long as the holes were a small diameter. The larger the diameter of the drill, the more torque it takes to drill through the wood. You can only get so much torque out of an egg-beater, thus the larger holes didn't make it all the way through the wood before I gave up. Got close enough, anyway. Once the holes were drilled I ripped the handle to thickness with my Japanese saw. I do this after I drill the holes so that any tear-out on the back side will be cut away when I rip the handle.

Once that was done, I carved out the bowl of the spoon and drilled a few more holes in places I missed the first time. You'll notice that I'm not in such a big hurry this time to carve down the thin places, like the junction of the bowl to the handle. I may be a slow learner, but I do learn! In the close up you'll see why I always leave the rim of the bowl higher than it will be at the finish. For one reason or another I always nick the rim of the bowl while hollowing it out.

The next couple of photos show how I've carved the leaves/hearts of the four-leaf-clover and how I've started the piercings. You can see that I've left some extra wood at the bottoms of the hearts in the house to reduce the risk of breakage when I start rounding and relieving them. I've also started chip-carving in the feathers on the eagle.

I have to say I'm not well pleased with alder for this design. It has a tendency to get splintery on narrow cuts such as where the wings join the body and touch the roof of the house. It's also not good on the chip carving. It's nothing than can't be overcome, but it's one more pain in the tuchus that I could do without. I am, however, pleased with the way the grain in the clover turned out. It kinda looks like I actually planned it that way. [Hah!]

One lesson that pounded itself into my brain while carving the clover was to keep an eye on the WHOLE length of my blade, not just the portion I'm cutting with. I don't know how many times I had to go back and recarve that central rib on one leaf because I put a nick in it while carving a different leaf.

Next week, if I'm lucky and real life doesn't intrude too much, I'll have finished this turkey . . . . um . . . . eagle lovespoon and have a new knife to play with. Until then, let the chips fly!

So Much Wood, So Little Time

2009-05-03T20:29:00.010-06:00

This week I was multi-tasking. That means I worked on several projects and didn't finish any of them. Well, that's not quite true. I did finish my first bowl . . . . again.

The more I looked at the original, the less I liked that flower pot look. So I decided to get rid of it. I continued the concave curve of the side all the way up to the rim. I think it improved things a lot. I feel that it made the grain of the wood show up much more attractively. The next bowl I do I'm going to try to make the outside curve convex rather than concave. I'm not sure how that's going to turn out. I know it can be done. Coperthwaite's book has a page about a carver in Mongolia that turns (not literally) out bowls using an adze, axe and bent knife that look like they have been turned. The bowls have a base, a rim and a terrifically uniform convex exterior. Maybe when I get into my eighties I can produce bowls like that, too.

Project Number Two: I ordered a couple of bent knife blades from Mike Komick at Preferred Edge. I saw a handle style that I wanted to try out, so I decided to do it myself. I found some maple turning stock on sale at my local Woodcraft store and decided to give it a try. I've never carved maple before. It's hard! Not so much that I wouldn't carve it again, but it did take for freakin' ever to move wood! I decided to do the bulk of the wood removal with a wood rasp and finish with the knife. I call it a whale-fish. Whale because that's the general body type given the way you mount the knife blade; fish because whales don't have tails like that. I could have turned the tail the other direction, but then I wouldn't have had a place to put my thumb.

Carving the teeth (he left his lowers in the glass when he got out of bed to come model for me) was an interesting exercise. It required some delicate maneuvering and a very thin-bladed and flexible knife (a Flexcut Detail Knife) to relieve the area between each tooth. Don't have it down pat yet, but it'll come. That flat opposite the whale-fish's head is where I will mount the blade when I get it; tomorrow, I hope.

Next time I'll have the knife finished, and I'll show you the progress on my Eagle Lovespoon. Until then, let the chips fly.

Chipping Away at the Future

2009-04-26T11:50:00.011-06:00

This week I carved out a spoon and my first bowl. The bowl was carved from a 4" x 4" x 2" piece of butternut. And, before you ask, yes, it was intentionally asymetric. Still turned out looking a bit like a flower pot. I'm considering trying to correct that by extending the concave curve of the side all the way up to the rim. And, no, I didn't do it on a lathe. I used bent knives, hook knives and sloyds. an interesting process for me, but not much to say about it otherwise, except watch your grain direction!

The other thing I finished this week was a spoon carved from alder. I pierced the s-curve in the handle to give it a little more interest.

What I really wanted to talk about this weekend were my thoughts on reading A Handmade Life by William Coperthwaite. It's a beautifully done book on high quality paper with lots of color photographs. The introduction by John Saltmarsh was, IMHO, pretty much a waste of paper. As soon as I got into the first chapter, however, I started seeing things I could relate to.

I am at a time of life when most people start wondering what they are going to do with the rest of it. In my case I figure I've got maybe another 25 years of productive life left, if I'm lucky. I don't want to spend that being an engineer. I've been doing that for over 30 years. It's time to do something else, something simpler and more satisfying. I think Coperthwaite is pointing me in the right direction.

One of the things I like about him is the fact that he is not a luddite. For all of his living in the wilderness in a permanent 3-story yurt, he uses modern technology when it is appropriate. He paddles his canoe 40 minutes to get supplies rather than using his pickup to do the same thing in 15 minutes because he prefers the silence. That is the same reason I use all hand tools, including most recently, a hand drill. I don't begrudge anyone the use of power tools, just don't try to get me to use them.

I've only read through the first chapter, but I am looking forward to chewing and digesting my way through the rest of it.

Enough navel-gazing for one day. Until next time, let the chips fly!

Knives I Use, Hook and Bent

2009-04-19T12:54:00.017-06:00

I forget the exact circumstances, but I was tweeting with Kari Hultman, accomplished woodworker and new spoon carver, that I had several hook knives and had ordered some new bent knives. I mentioned that the two types of knives were different, something of which she wasn't aware. Since I just received two new bent knives from Preferred Edge I thought I would blog about it.

Now, keep in mind that I am no expert on the subject. This is just my take. If Mike Komick from Preferred Edge or Del Stubbs from Pinewood Forge want to weigh in on this in the comments, and correct anything I say or expand on it, they have my explicit permission to do so.

In general I distinguish between bent knives and hook knives by their origin. The way I see it, bent knives are of aboriginal American (I refuse to use the term "Native American", but that's a rant for another time), and hook knives are of European origin. Their design and method of use are similar, but different.

For instance, what you see here is called a high-curve, inside bevel, bent knife from Preferred Edge. The blade is 1/4" wide, 1-1/2" long and made from 1/16" thick tool steel. The inside bevel allows for deep cuts and moving lots of wood. It comes straight from Mike sharp enough to shave the fuzz off a ripe peach without breaking the skin. Keep in mind that I don't sand any of my pieces. Using the right technique, these knives leave a smooth, glossy finish. Mike's website has a great section on the history and use of the bent knife.

I used it to start the eye sockets on this Santa, work on hollowing the cheeks and relieving the rectangular areas in the base. You can get a nice, flat surface with this knife. That thing in the photo with the Santa and the knife is the sheath I made for the knife. Apparently the traditional way to store and transport bent knives is to wrap them in a rag (or, more contemporaneously, a tool roll). I have never been happy putting sharp edges inside of fabric. Call it a quirk. So I made a wooden sheath that opens like a book and is secured by a 1"-wide strap of cordura nylon with a velcro closure. It is safer and affords more protection to the blade.

Moving right along, I've had that knife for a while, but I just received two new knives from Mike: a high-curved and a hook outside bevel knife. Here are all three of them together.

The two knives on the bottom are the same knife except that one is an outside bevel and one is an inside bevel. The difference is that the outside bevel allows you to make thinner shavings more easily. The blade tends to rise out of the wood rather than digging in like the inside bevel does.

You can see how the blade is attached to the outside of the handle rather than inserted into it. This allows you to get really close to the work. This type of knife also requires a different hold than a more conventional knife. It's a reverse grip like the photos below. Before you get all excited about how unsafe I'm being, I have to say that I was not actually carving when I took these photos. These are just for illustrating the grip. While they are really well suited for carving in one's lap, I DO NOT recommend working like that without a board or other means of armoring your legs!

As you can see, I use these knives when I'm working on some of my smaller things. The thin, short blades make them great for hollowing out small spoon bowls. Of course Mike makes a wide variety of knives of all sizes as well as the largest selection of adzes that I've seen from one place.

You might think that these blades, being so thin, are fragile. They are NOT! In learning to use that first knife (still learning) I did some things I probably shouldn't have done. In the interest of not incriminating myself, I shall not enumerate those things. The point being (ha, ha) that the blade didn't bend, chip or break. Mike makes one tough knife.

On to the European-style hook knife. I think more people are familiar with these. Some of the best knives made in this style are by Del Stubbs at Pinewood Forge. Of the eleven carving knives on his catalog page, I own eight. And he's coming out with another one! Del, ya gotta stop doing that! My wife is gonna kill me.

These are the hook knives he makes. He forges the blades himself, as does Mike Komick. These knives are so sharp they'll cut you if you even think about touching the edge. Actually, that's not strictly true. You have to think real hard!

You'll notice that the handles are relieved on the edge side of the blade so you won't be bumping into the wood as you carve. Just one of the many thoughtful elements of design of these knives. Del's knives are single-edged so he makes these in both right and left hand models.

Some people don't like the roundness in the handle, but I don't see it. The finish Del puts on his handles provides a good grip. My hands sweat a lot, and I have no trouble hanging on. I use these knives with a conventional grip rather than a reverse grip.

I've probably rambled way too much here, but, hey, it's my blog. I can ramble if I want. If you have any questions, leave a comment, or (my recommendation) get directly in touch with Mike or Del. Both of them are friendly, great guys to deal with and very willing to share their knowledge. I use both makers' knives, and I love both makers' knives. You can't go wrong.

Until next time, let the chips fly!

Greenwood Carving or One Man's Trash . . .

2009-04-12T11:19:00.003-06:00

Started snowing this morning about 7 AM (April 12!). I took this photo about 10 AM. No outside work today!

This is important because on my way home from work Friday (sunny and 65 deg) I saw one of my neighbors had been cutting down some young aspens and had put them out on the street. Never having met the people I was a bit apprehensive as I walked over to ask them if I could have some of the wood. I'm really starting to look like an old biker dude (I'm a big guy), and I didn't want to scare them. So I took off my cap and sunglasses, put a big smile on my face and rang the doorbell. The man couldn't have been nicer and said, "Sure, take as much as you want. Please!" So I grabbed a couple of 10-foot long sections that tapered from a little over 3" in diameter down to about 1-1/2" and had a couple of branch takeoffs that will make decent ladles and dragged them about 3 blocks back to my house.

Now keep in mind that this is my first foray into carving green wood. I forgot to start taking pictures (still kinda new at this blogging-with-photos thing) until I had both pieces of wood already cut into 12", 10", 8" and 6" lengths and had already started debarking and splitting. True to my philosophy I did everything with hand tools. Cutting green wood with a hand saw just isn't that big a deal. I do get odd looks from the neighbors, though. My neighbor across the street was doing some home improvement work with a circular saw. He asked if I wanted to borrow it for a while. Nice guy, but just not clear on the concept of doing hand work. Besides which, I hate the noise power tools make!

Moving right along, the next photo shows my bench with the tools I was using and the first couple of blanks. That's Baby over on the far left. I prefer using her to a hatchet or hand axe for work like this because I feel I have more control with her. Baby handles the debarking, splitting and blank chopping. The next photo is Baby at work on a 3" diameter branch.

So from dragging the wood into my yard to the point you see here was about 2-1/2 hours. You can see in the background the wood I still have to debark and split. On the footrest of the bench you can see the pieces still to be made into blanks, and the blanks I've "finished" on the top. Next to Baby you can see "mi palo", the baton I use with Baby to split wood.

It was at this point that Baby told me it was time to stop for the day. Believe me, NOBODY, especially me, disrepects Baby! So I packed up and threw all the blanks and debarked wood into a bucket of water hoping to continue on Saturday. Saturday it was cloudy and rainy. Today it is snowing, and the snow will be gone by tomorrow afternoon.

Anyway, it gave me an opportunity to try my hand at my first greenwood utility spoon. I picked a blank out of the bucket of water, dried it off and went to work. Green wood is so much easier to carve than dry, seasoned wood. Forgive me if I'm the only one to whom that is a revelation. However, there are other things with which to contend, such as it's tendency to split while drying. On the advice of some much more experienced spoon carvers than I, once primary carving was done, I wrapped it in a paper towel and put it in the microwave for 30 seconds. That was about 10 seconds too long, apparently. When I took it out (it was hot and the paper towel was wet) there was a split in the bowl which I immediately carved out to keep it from spreading.

My working habits made the bowl the best place for a split to occur allowing me to still save the spoon. I learned early on doing lovespoons that I should never establish the finished height of the rim of the bowl until I have carved out the inside. Inevitably I will nick the bowl rim, so I always leave way more rim than I will eventually need. After carving out the split, I microwaved the spoon as before but for only 20 seconds, then put it in the freezer for 5 minutes. I repeated this 8 times. Putting the spoon in the microwave essentially boils out the moisture, and putting it in the freezer until the entire spoon is fully cool ensures that moisture on the spoon's surface won't be reabsorbed. When the spoon was as dry as I wanted it, I corrected the damage to the bowl and treated it with food-safe mineral oil. The result is below. Click on the photo to see it full-size.

Overall, this spoon took me about four hours from the time I took the blank out of the water to the time I dunked it in the mineral oil. Yes, Sean, I know. I'll go to the poorhouse and my family will starve. :) But it was an enormous amount of fun. From now on, I'll be on the lookout for downed limbs and cut trees. My wife will be thrilled.

Until next time, let the chips fly!

Random Thoughts, Twitter Inspired

2009-04-07T15:14:00.004-06:00

I was visiting a blog today called ahardslojdlife about the traditional use of wood and saw a video on that site showing Niklas Karlsson using a bowl adze. I remembered that Kari Hultman from the Village Carpenter blog had just bought her first bowl adze, so I tweeted to her about the site and the video.

I also tweeted about Niklas' philosophy on traditional woodworking and how closely it parallels mine. He believes (paraphrasing here) that the aesthetic of tradtional woodworking is not about copying forms, but about using the old-fashioned work processes.

Quoting here: "Understanding that aesthetics I have found to be a long process of patiently working with the conditions given by the traditional way to work. You have to feel familiar with the tools and materials from that coherence until you loose, in a way, the respect for them. Because there has to be a carelessness involved in order to resist the modern mans urge to make the perfect and impeccable design."

The last sentence smacked me between the ears. (You know the first thing to do to teach a mule something, don't you?) It bears repeating for all us galoots out there. "There has to be a carelessness involved in order to resist the modern mans urge to make the perfect and impeccable design."

By the word "carelessness" I believe Niklas means that we have to get so familiar with the process of using hand tools that it becomes second nature to us. We don't have to think about it any more. We accept the fact that our pieces will not be perfect, while not using that as an excuse to be sloppy. Perfect beauty is recognizably artificial. Imperfect beauty is much more interesting. Imperfections, tool marks, a slightly "gappy" joint, a small tear out, show that the piece was made by hand by a human being, not a machine. As handworkers I believe that we leave a little piece of our soul in every piece we make.

OK, starting to ramble and get a little "woo-woo" here, so I'll leave it at that.

One more thing. Go to Niklas' YouTube site and watch the video entitled "Fetved". ROFL! I won't ruin it, but most of us would stop what we were doing. Not Niklas! That is one determined man!

Until next time, let the chips fly!

Lovespoon Lite or You Would Think I'd Learn!

2009-04-05T12:52:00.013-06:00

Hi, my name is Bob, and I'm an idiot. That will become clearer as the post progresses.

I'm going to let you look at the finished product first, and then begin beating myself about the head and shoulders while telling you why.

I got the idea, while looking at a lovespoon site somewhere in Great Britain, to do some smaller, less complicated lovespoons for use as wedding favors or gifts to the mothers of the bride and groom. This spoon is about 6" long and 2" wide made from 1/2"x2"x6" poplar, believe it or not. I'm really pleased with the dark color. I finished it with Williamsville Wax. According to the bottle ($8.99 for 8 oz from my local Woodcraft store) it consists of beeswax, lemon oil and other natural oils with no solvents turpenoids or other nasty stuff.

From these photos you can see the most basic "uff-da" mistake I made: the design is unbalanced. The spoon bowl is too small and the entwined hearts are too large. Also I feel the strands forming the entwined hearts are too wispy. That last is due to my trying to save the spoon after having noticed the design issue during rough out. And for future reference note in the side view how thin the wood is at the first strand crossing above the bowl. You will see this material again!

All this springs from the same damn mistake I made with the first lovespoon I posted here: not working the design out full scale on paper before transfering it to the spoon.

You see, I figured that since this was going to be a small, simple, quick-to-carve spoon, I didn't have to spend all that time drawing the design full-scale on tracing paper so I could mirror the design, making it symmetrical, work out any design issues like the proper sizes of the elements and the proper over-under sequence of the strands.

Yeah, no prob to freehand the design onto the wood and just go to cutting! Certainly not! I don't need to follow the rules I made for myself after making this mistake before. Nah, it's just a simple spoon. No need for all that complicated stuff.

Would have saved myself a lot of aggrivation if I had, though.

The fourth photo shows the spoon at the roughout stage. It's a little more clear here that the central elements are a little too big for the size of the spoon's bowl. It's also apparent that my pencil marks are not terribly visible against that dark wood, a point that will become important in a bit. If you enlarge the photo you can just see that I have the over-under sequence of the strands the first time they cross above the bowl shown properly. It's supposed to be over, under, over, under.

I didn't screw up the side view too much except for ripping too far down. I wanted the strands for the entwined hearts to grow more organically out of the bowl. This is something else that would have been easier to plan for had I drawn the design out, and if I weren't such an impatient sawyer. Turned out all right, though, as you have seen above.

The fifth photo shows a little more progress. I've begun the piercing process. Here is where it became really clear to me that the design was unbalanced. What was unclear was where my pencil lines were. You see, I didn't have a real drawing of the design that I could refer to. You see where the two entwined hearts come together, that little divot on each side of the spoon handle? Now go back and look at the first photo of the finished spoon. See that divot anywhere? No. That's the way it's supposed to be. Took me a little bit to figure that out. After my wife told me to stop banging my head against the wall (she was trying to watch television, and I was making too much noise) I decided I might as well try to kill two birds with one stone. I would bring the outside edges of the two hearts in so that there was no divot and then skinny-down the strands so that they wouldn't overwhelm the bowl.

That's what the sixth photo shows. It also shows how I went over my pencil lines with a fine-point Sharpie so I could see them. What a concept! At this point I've also started relieving the strand cross-over points. It was here that I messed up the sequence. Where I had it correct before, when I drew it in with the Sharpie, I messed it up. Back to banging head on wall!

Well, I hadn't gone so far in the relieving process that I couldn't correct myself. At least in one thing I listened to David! It was, however, going to make that crossover point really thin!

As you can see in the next set of pictures, I paid for that. Told you you were going to see that thin spot again!

You can clearly see the glue joints where I broke the spoon while thinning down the strands. Super glue to the rescue! I was a bit worried about how that would look with the finish I was going to use. I haven't used Williamsville Wax before and I was afraid that the glue would cause some obvious spots on the spoon. so I carved off as much of the surface glue as I could without reducing the thickness to that of a sheet of paper. Fortunately, if you refer back to the photos of the finished spoon the joints are barely visible.

So, there you have it! My small, simple, quick-to-carve lovespoon! Actually, in spite of my bumbling, it turned out OK. Still a little unbalanced, but I can live with it.

Having gone through all the qvetching, I don't want you to think that I'm unhappy with the result or that I'm fishing for compliments. My whole purpose of doing this blog is to help others by showing everyone my own mistakes and how I went about trying to correct them. I hope, in that, that I have succeded a little bit.

Until next time, let the chips fly!

UPDATE: Go to the Woodbee Carver, Don Mertz's blog, and read his post about learning by doing. That's what this whole blog is about.

Evolution of a Lovespoon Design

2009-03-25T18:42:00.006-06:00

OK, take a deep breath. We are about to delve, very briefly and shallowly, into the history and symbology of lovespoons. I am by no means an expert on this, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Or two. If you want to delve more deeply into the history of lovespoons you should go here. The most helpful and informative books I've found are David Western's Fine Art of Carving Lovespoons, and Shirley Adler's Carving Spoons. Do a Google search on lovespoons, and you'll find even more sources. Just be aware that not everything you read on the interwebs is totally reliable!

Let's start off with the design of my next lovespoon. The first picture shows a scan of a pencil sketch I did in my notebook. I started with a central idea: a loving couple with hearth and home. That became the overlapping hearts in a house-like structure. I thought next I would have a symbol of protection: the Celtic dragon below the house. You will note that the firey breath and the end of the tail are also hearts. Now for a symbol for luck. Why not a four-leaf clover. Better yet, the leaves look like hearts. Then the bowl of the spoon: another heart. Getting the drift here? You'll notice if you look closely I first thought of a pair of diamonds just above the bowl. Diamonds represent prosperity for the loving couple. But I didn't like the transition to the bowl, so I tried the clover.

Unfortunately, I didn't like the way the clover and the heart-shaped bowl looked together either. There wasn't any way I could see the clover flowing naturally and smoothly into the bowl. So I refined the clover design a bit and had the stem flow into an oval bowl. I think that looks much better.

But I needed another element on top. I try to make most of my lovespoons about 11" to 12" long and maximum 3" wide. That proportion appeals to my eye. Your mileage may vary. Based on those measurements I find that each element should be about 2-1/2" tall. So I needed to add something to the top. I found a Celtic eagle that I liked. It could symbolize both protection and the national symbol of the United States.

Now I got to thinking that having the dragon and the eagle was a little too much emphasis on protection, so I had to go looking for something else. I found a rounded Celtic design of kissing cranes and decided to go with that, symbolizing togetherness for life. The second picture is of the finished design drafted out and ready to transfer to the wood blank. The shaded areas will be pierced through, and the heart-leaves of the clover will be carved with a central vein and relieved edges so that they look like clover leaves. The tail of the eagle will go behind the peak of the house's roof.

I've learned that the symbology can be somewhat flexible as I hope I have illustrated here. Other elements you can add would be things that illustrate a common interest in the happy couple. If they love to sail, you might have a boat somewhere in the design. In general, though, other common symbols are lock-and-key for security, anchor for stability, bells for marriage, entwined vines or Celtic knots for growing together, endless Celtic knot for endless love, horseshoes for good luck, balls in cage for children or captured love, cross for sanctity in marriage, and so on.

So that was my thought process in putting together this design. David's book has an excellent chapter on design that taught me a lot. Maybe not enough, but I like this design and can adjust it as I carve, making elements bigger, smaller, fatter, thinner if I think it improves the overall look. The idea is to have a balanced design such that the eye flows naturally to the central idea and that the design flows from one element to another without jarring changes. I think I've accomplished that here, but let me know what you think.

Until next time, let the chips fly!

Introducing, The World's First . . . .

2009-03-21T15:06:00.007-06:00

Introducing the first Lovespoon/Companion Spoon set in the world. As far as I know. I asked the most knowledgeable person I know about it, and he had never heard of such a thing. I've also not seen anything about it in the research I've done, so, until someone can prove me wrong I'm going to lay claim to it!

The Companion Spoons are a matched (more or less) pair of eating spoons to accompany the primary lovespoon. They will be available with the names of each of the loving pair carved or kolrosed into the handle. I'm also thinking about producing some manner of spoon rack in which to house the Companion Spoons. I haven't decided precisely what form that will take yet.

One thing that is blatantly obvious is that the color of the wood for the Companion Spoons don't match the lovespoon. Well, it did before I finished them! The eating spoons and the display spoon require (??) different finishes. The lovespoon was finished with an application of hot neutral shoe polish. This leaves the wood of the spoon very near the original color of the unfinished wood as very little of the shoe polish is absorbed by the grain. Obviously I can't finish the eating spoons with shoe polish. It may not be toxic, but it certainly will contribute a distinctive whang to the taste of anything eaten with the spoon.

I finished the eating spoons by soaking them in food-grade mineral oil. I've been using an eating spoon finished with mineral oil for about a month now, and I'm liking the way it holds up so far. Could I finish the lovespoon with mineral oil? I could. But just because I could, does that mean I should. What do my Gentle Readers (yes, both of you!) think? Oh, ye who are more knowledgeable about wood finishing than I (just about everybody) think about that idea? Leave me a comment about what you think.

Next time I'll go over the evolution of a lovespoon design. Until then, let the chips fly!

AARRRGH! . . . . . Oh, wait

2009-03-15T15:09:00.007-06:00

Since last we talked about this lovespoon, I finished the piercings, hollowed the bowl, and began the other decorations. As you might remember, those decorations in the flat spots beneath and above the roundels were intended to be kolrosed.

Well, I did it.

The result was HORRIBLE! Much to my embarrassment I have posted that photo. I refuse to post the close ups! You can get close enough by just clicking on the photo. The cuts aren't straight. They overrun the borders. Too close together so pieces of wood chipped out. Disgusting! Must. Practice. More.

Well, I couldn't let THAT stand! I racked my brain trying to figure out how I could salvage this spoon. I finally decided that the best way, the ONLY way, was to relieve the wood in the kolrosed areas down to a point below the penetration of the kolrosing knife. Not as difficult or disruptive as I thought it would be. Once I was there I had to determine what to put in the blank spots. And boy, were they BLANK!

As you can see, I decided, after much deliberation, to go with diamonds in the small spaces and raised hearts above the bowl. The diamonds were a cinch, and the hearts weren't difficult at all.

After having thought about it a bit I believe that this turned out better than it would have if the kolrosing had been right on. There's nothing to distract from the wood, which the kolrosing would have done. Of course the diamonds could have been a bit more even had I planned them from the beginning, but, not bad. Not bad at all.

I was talking to someone a while ago about "adjusting" the pattern as you carved. He was of the opinion that in something as "precise" as a lovespoon the pattern couldn't be adjusted during carving. It would ruin the meaning of the knots and symbols. To that, I say, "PAH!"

What do you think about my adjustments and in-progress adjustments in general?

Next time I'll finish up the companion spoons.

It's a Spoon!!!

2009-03-12T20:19:00.004-06:00

I want to thank profusely the people who responded to my call for help! Among them, in no particular order, The Great Ethan Allen, Sir Richard, Carl, Tom H, Dell Stubbs and David. Each of them contributed in one way or another to shaking the scales from my eyes that I might SEE!! The result is pictured below: the same spoon as in the previous post, but modified. It still needs a little refinement, but at least now I know where I'm going. Thanks, guys.

Help!

2009-03-10T20:40:00.006-06:00

OK, what you see here is a lovespoon companion. Don't ask your neighbor what that is, because I think I just invented it. At least until I can ask David Western if he's ever heard of such a thing.

According to me, a lovespoon companion is one of a pair of eating spoons carved from the same wood as a lovespoon and with the same basic bowl style. The names of the lucky owners will be kolrossed into the flat of the handle.

And the handle is the issue before us today. This handle is, to my eye, rather clunky.

I've about got the bowl where I want it, though I'm still not totally satisfied, but I'm really not pleased with the handle. I don't like the transition from bowl to handle either from the top or the side. The top view, I think, can be "handled" (har, har) by making the transition thinner. I don't know what to do with the side view. You have to leave more wood there to keep the bowl and the handle from parting company, but I don't really like the way it looks. Also I think I need to introduce some curveyness (that's probably not a legitimate word) to the profile toward the end.

So what I'm asking my Gentle Readers (yes, BOTH of you) is to give me some suggestions (constructive, please; if I want abuse I can go back to work) about how to improve the handles of my eating spoons.

And what are the prizes, Johnny?

Nothing, nada, zip. Just the satisfaction of having helped an addled wood carver in need of a kick in the creative behind.

I'm looking forward to seeing your suggestions, so don't hold back.

Next time, back to the lovespoons. Until then, let the chips fly!

New (Less Complicated) Lovespoon - Part 1

2009-03-07T13:57:00.005-07:00

I know, I know. Last week I said I was going to give lovespoons a rest and do some work on my Santas. But then I got an idea for a new lovespoon. Once I sketched it out, I had to start work on it. Way too often my enthusiasm overwhelms my patience. Any how, I drew the pattern full size and traced it onto a nominal 12"x2"x1" poplar board using graphite transfer paper.

Since, other than a hand drill, I don't use noisy power tools like band saws and scroll saws, I have to have work-arounds. Cutting through 24" of wood with a coping saw is a daunting task even with the super-aggressive blade I have in it. So I took my Japanese hand saw and cut from the edge of the board to the edge of the pattern. THEN I used my coping saw to cut off the resulting tabs. Watching those tabs fall to the floor really made me feel I was zipping along. Whether I was or not.

Once I had all the tabs cut off, I drilled the holes in the portions of the design that will be pierced and broke out the Japanese saw again to rip half the thickness off the handle. Since the joint between the bowl of the spoon and it's handle is so thin in plan, I left plenty of thickness in the back to strengthen it.

I filled out the design in pencil. The roundels are to be spaces for initials and dates. They will have chip-carved borders. You can see I messed up the border design on the top roundel. Luckily all I have to do to fix it is erase and redraw. The cross hatched areas will be kolrossed and the space just above the bowl will have a chip-carved star.

At this point I have just over an hour invested in this piece, exclusive of the design time. And my shoulder is sore from all the sawing! That's OK. It's good, cardiovacular exercise, and, Lord knows, I need more of that.

So, enough for today. I'll have my next post up in a couple of days continuing with this spoon. I hope by then I'll have figured out how to post photos in a more logical manner, so the sequence isn't all screwed up as it was with this post.

Thanks for dropping in. Until next time, let the chips fly!

Lovespoon Angst, Part Two

2009-02-28T21:18:00.005-07:00

Welcome back, friends and neighbors! Take a look at the photo of the lovespoon in this post and compare it to the one in the last post. What you see is the result of approximately six hours of carving!

When last we talked, I hadn't yet decided what I was going to do with the birds at the top of the spoon. Originally I had intended to either kolross or chip carve them. At the last minute I decided to throw caution to the winds and carve them in the round. Fine.

I wish I had made that decision earlier. If I thought the flying heart knot was too small . . . . . I had no idea what I was getting into. I first started by cutting shallow ramps in the "neck knot" to delineate which strands pass over and which pass under. Because when I laid out the pattern originally I intended to carve only one side of the birds, I didn't mirror the pattern on the back side of the spoon. No big deal. I can free-hand the pattern on the back as I carve. Rrrriiiight!

So I started at the bottom of the neck knot and started working my way up the edges of the spoon. I worked the bottom loops around to the back and drew and cut freehand where I thought the strands were going. I worked about a quarter of the way up the back. Then I moved around to the front of the spoon and started work on the piercings. I was using the knife you see on the left of the spoon, made by Carl, the Carver/TurnerFromNoWhere. The blade is tiny (14 mm long, 4 mm wide at the handle, 2 mm wide at the tip), sharp as sin and twice as dangerous. A beautiful knife and the perfect tool for working on small knots. In spite of that, I quickly discovered, while trying to relieve the piercings with the knife, that they were so small that I could only do it by drilling. A 1/16th inch drill bit took 99% of the wood out of the piercings leaving me with only squaring up the insides of the holes with the knife, something emminently do-able.

Only one problem. Because I free-handed and carved the bottom strands of the knot on the back of the spoon, before I drilled the holes, two of the holes went directly through the middle of the strands I had already carved. OK, how does that go? Proper Prior Planning . . . . .

No problem! I had, from the beginning, only intended to finish the front of the spoon. What does it matter if the back of the spoon looks like a dog's dinner? The front looks halfway decent, even though I'm still having trouble keeping the thickness of the strands consistent.

BTW, when carving strands this small with those tight turns, cutting against the grain, unless done VERY carefully, tends to break out relatively large sections of wood, making it even more difficult to keep the strands consistent.

This week I only had two breaks (literally). The first was the crest of the bird's head on the right. When undercutting the front of the crest, I wound up levering the knife blade and snapping off the entire crest. Super Glue to the rescue!

The second break was on the left wing of the flying heart, caused by holding the spoon wrong while carving. Same thing I did to break off the right wing. This time I didn't break it off totally. In any case, back to the Super Glue. David Western gave me some excellent advice: Do the delicate parts LAST! One day I'll learn to listen.

I think I've rambled enough for this week. Next week I think I'll talk about Santa. That'll give me enough time to slow down on the lovespoon so I don't fly into a fit of frustration.

As you can see on the right, I've begun Twittering. Don't know how that's going to work out, but if you want to follow me, just click on the link.

Until next time, let the chips fly!

New Look

2009-02-23T20:17:00.001-07:00

Several people mentioned that they had trouble reading the white-on-black layout, so I changed it to this. Hope this makes it easier for those with "old eyes". :)

Comments and Critiques

2009-02-22T09:00:00.002-07:00

I am always pleased to get comments on my work and constructive critiques. Don't be shy. I have a very thick skin!

Bob

Lovespoon Angst

2009-02-22T07:29:00.008-07:00

Welcome to my new blog. I'm going to be talking about my journey through the world of woodcarving, good and less-than-good. I've been carving most of my almost six decades on this planet although most of it has been in fits and starts. I guess if you put all my carving experience end-to-end you would come up with about 3 years of carving. I started carving consistently and seriously in the latter part of 2008. Since then I have progressed much further than I would have thought.

I'm going to try to publish at least once a week, and I would appreciate it, if you like what you see, if you would "follow" me by clicking on the Followers gadget on the sidebar. If nothing else, it will make me feel better to know that my posts are not disappearing into the Great Bit-Bucket In The Sky without being read.

Now, to business! I'm going to start off this journey by talking about a work-in-progress (WIP). This is my latest attempt at a lovespoon of my own design. If you are not familiar with lovespoons, the best place to learn about them is David Western's site. He is a master of the form and has been of great help to me.

Most carving blogs and websites tell you how to do things after the author has worked out all the details and made his mistakes. He tells you the right way, bypassing the mistake phase. I think that is incomplete information. My blog will expose all the mistakes I make along the way to getting a good end product. Mistakes are learning opportunities, and I want my readers to get as much information as I can give them, so let's start.

This lovespoon is my own design, as I mentioned earlier. I LIKE this design. The problem is that it basically outstripped my current level of skill. It is a complex design, and, thus, there are a lot of things to keep in mind as you carve it. Too many things, as it turns out, for my feeble mind to follow just now. One of the first "uff-da" mistakes I made was in drawing the patterns for the knots in the tails of the fish and the "flying heart". The strands of the knots are supposed to alternate over-and-under, so that you don't have two or more consecutive overs or unders. This was my first effort at drawing knots, and I was too excited and anxious to get started carving that I didn't pay attention. Because I drew the knots wrong, I carved them wrong even after having read David's book, FINE ART OF CARVING LOVESPOONS, and reading his blog which warns of this very thing. So, Caveat Number One: draw your design and check it, line by line, before you start carving it.

Another item about carving knots. Most people cut them out on a scroll saw before carving. I don't. I don't have a scroll saw, nor do I want one. I used a drill, the only power tool I use in my carving, to drill holes in the pierced areas to give me a starting point for my knife. I used a coping saw in some of the piercings, but not many. This leads me to my second mistake regarding knots: making them too small for a knife. The fish tail knot was fine, but the flying heart knot was too small for the knives I had. This was dealing me fits until I got a mini detail knife from my friend Carl, the Carver/TurnerfromNowhere. His tiny blade has made carving that knot immensely easier. Not faster, mind you, just easier and less frustrating. Just like a scroll saw would for those of you who don't mind using power tools. So, Caveat Number Two: make your design appropriate for the tools you have.

A further item about carving knots: as you are carving the strands, pay attention to BOTH sides of the knot. Unless you do this with every cut, it will be difficult or even impossible to keep the size of the strands consistent. I have made several cuts trying to smooth or even up one side of a strand where the other end of the knife blade, the end I wasn't paying attention to, cut too far into the far side of the strand, making it too narrow or cutting a step into the strand. Caveat Number Three: be aware of the entire length of your knife blade. While the base of the blade may be doing exactly what you want it to, the tip could be cutting into something you don't want to cut.

BTW, those shiny sections of wood on the right wing of the flying heart are caused by super glue. While carving another part of the spoon, I broke that wing off. Inherent hazard! I glued it back on with super glue and soaked the area around the break to toughen up the wood. Not twenty minutes after this photo was taken I broke off the same piece AGAIN! Back to the super glue, The Carver's Secret Weapon! Duct tape for carvers!

I'm going to end this for now. Next time I'm going to be talking about the twin birds at the top of the spoon. I haven't totally decided how I'm going to do them. I originally started out thinking I was going to kolross them or chip carve them, but I'm leaning toward doing them in the round. We'll see.

Before I go, I'm going to address a question that I'm sure will come up: If you made so many mistakes in this carving, why are you still working on it instead of tossing it out and starting a new one? I believe that every carving I do has something to teach me. If I don't finish the carving I'll be missing some of that instruction. I've learned a lot doing this carving, making mistakes and figuring out how to correct them as best I can. I've learned these lessons a lot better and a lot faster than I would have just reading how to do it right the first time. So I try to finish every carving I start, for good or ill.

Until next time, let the chips fly!