Wood carving?

R

Richard Smith

Guest
Does woodcarving count as a Neader skill? Or should I be in another forum?
 
Oh yeah :thumb:
Wood chips on the floor don't know where they come from or how they got there. :rofl:

DT
 
If you carve lathe-turned pieces with a rotary tool, what forum does it go in? :huh: :D

Welcome to the forums, Richard. I don't know how many carvers are hiding around here, but I'd think somewhere here in Handtool Haven is the place for woodcarving, so I moved it here from the Old Iron area. Let's see if we can stir some of the carvers here out of the woodwork. :)
 
I've been a pretend carver for many years and only have a few modest pieces I'd even claim.

Last night our Woodworkers' Guild hosted a member who is noted for his carving abilities. In a few minutes he'd transformed a log into an amazing wood spirit. The demonstration as well as his explanations were right on and really encouraged me to try to finish a totem pole I'd started several years ago.

The wood chips are flying!
 
I've done a bit of carving but don't have the patience for the avocation as a regular thing. Having some carving knowledge and experience can add a lot to other projects, whether flat or spun.
 
Welcome, Richard.

Carving is one of those endeavors it usually doesn't matter where one pops in a thread. I simply enjoy any form, from powered to hand-powered.

So feel free to start carving discussions!

Take care, Mike
 
Thanks for the welcome. I'll get around and take some photos.
 
Welcome, Richard

I started into carving a couple years ago by taking some classes. It was mostly architectural stuff - fans, shells, acanthus leaf, ball & claw feet - and I learned a lot, but those were not the type of carvings I really wanted to do.

Fortunately for me, my carving instructor left after I had him and has been replaced by a guy who worked at Knott's Berry Farm for 15-20 years. He did all the carvings in the park plus put on demos constantly. He also worked at Disney World in FL for a couple years. So I'm "repeating" the classes and finally working more on what interests me. I'm now doing a bust of Chief Velarde, an Apache Chief. I've actually stopped the woodcarving to work instead on sculpting my piece in clay. Never done that before, but it'll be easier, more forgiving and cheaper than making [more] mistakes in a big chunk of basswood.

O.K., here's my pics. Your turn.

Mike
 

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Hi there.

Knowing the hunger for pictures that we all have here you have some ( apart from mine:) ).
I carved this penguin out of a piece of pine wood (wich was the size of the actual base when I was 18 years old.
The model were about 6 or 7 different photographs from a National Geographic magazine, and the posture was a consecuence of having to obtain the figure from the wood size available.

I had the guidance of a master carver who has been like a second father to me and I learned a so much about volumes and how to move them around to obtain what you want that even now I'm amazed how difficult can be to carve such a simple figure.

Just to mention a detail, the head had to be turned sideways to be able to obtain enough material to carve the beak. It fitted on the diagonal of the block and yet it had to look right!
Years later on, the beak broke off due to bad grain orientation and the piece lost. What you see now is replacement not as good as I'd like it to be.
If anybody is interested in more details just let me know.
 

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BTW

How many of you are familiar with different sculpting techniques? I mention this because many people think that the usual way to work is direct sculpting, (carving directly from the final material) which is the hardest and more difficult one.

Most famous sculptors in any material, even Michelangelo used the points transfer method using either dividers or a point transferring tool.

If anyone is interested I can share my little knowledge of those, or maybe get some more from any of you.
 
Toni and Mike, fantastic! :thumb:

I'd love to learn how to do that, I have tried a little bit, but know next to nothing about it, so I got frustrated and gave it up.

Please more info in you guys can share it.

Cheers!
 
The comment I am hearing is I'd like to do that but can't. I took some classes from several people. The biggest thing they can teach you is this. You have to have sharp tools. Scary sharp as they say. And you have to understand grain direction. If you have sharp tools and carve with the grain you don't even have to sand when you get done. As for design, people make money drawing stuff for you to carve. Just trace and cut the profile on the band saw. Then using your tool of choice begin to make it look like what you want to see. Of course it can be more complex than this but, you get better with practice.
 
Good advice, Richard.

And there are a lot of tutorials if one wants them. Excercises for practice. Pye has some PDF lessons on his web site.

Me, when I started carving again in the late 1960s, I began with replicating rock album covers and moved on from there. Point being, follow one's interests. Because if it doesn't hold your interest a large part of motivation is removed.

Take care, Mike
 
Hi Mike.

I completely agree with you, I would add that trying to run when we don't know yet how to walk is the most common way to frustration and dissapointment.

Starting with simple and quick projects will encourage the begginer to pursue on the way, and most of us insist on forgetting about that.

We all want to make big impressive projects, on the fly, specially when we are young and as someone said "youth is the only disease that heals with time".
 
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