Greetings from SW France

Hello everybody in familywoodworking,

I am new to the site and also to crafting in wood and at age 70 I am happy to learn new skills and gain from younger experiences if I can.

I am particularly interested in relief carving on panels, and head and abstract sculptures.

At the moment I am assembling the hardwares and benches etc so I can function in my chosen area; many items I have bought over years with retirement in mind so I find I already have a bunch of gear though the quality and usefulness might be questionable. I just accumulated not knowing a thing about their usefulness or value in technique.

I am looking forward to discovering all sorts of new ideas and directions when I next log on.

Best wishes . . .
 
Hello everybody in familywoodworking,

I am new to the site and also to crafting in wood and at age 70 I am happy to learn new skills and gain from younger experiences if I can.

I am particularly interested in relief carving on panels, and head and abstract sculptures.

At the moment I am assembling the hardwares and benches etc so I can function in my chosen area; many items I have bought over years with retirement in mind so I find I already have a bunch of gear though the quality and usefulness might be questionable. I just accumulated not knowing a thing about their usefulness or value in technique.

I am looking forward to discovering all sorts of new ideas and directions when I next log on.

Best wishes . . .

Welcome to the forum David, I'm also a wannabe carver and woodworker, so feel free to ask and post your work, we love pics here!
 
Welcome to the forum David, I'm also a wannabe carver and woodworker, so feel free to ask and post your work, we love pics here!

David, first welcome to the Family. :wave: Second for Toni to say his a "wannabe carver" is a huge understatement. Do a few searches of his work here, it's beautiful. Also as Toni said we love pictures here!
 
Welcome David. :wave: I believe you might be our first French member. It's great to have you here. And as the others have said, Toni is only being modest. He does wonderful work, and he happens to also be in Europe, relatively close to you (about 800 KM). :thumb:
 
David,

Welcome to FWW. I think that you will enjoy most of us. I'm a little pixilated, however I don't have egg allover my face.

You have probably already figured out that everybody likes Toni. That is because he is a great guy.

Enjoy,
JimB

I will say it again, "Welcome!"
 
Hop on David and hang on, you're in for a great ride. I also joined a few months ago at the age of 70 & I've found this forum to be very helpful. Everyone kicks in with their suggestions and their experience will leave you in awe. (How am I doing guys? :rofl: ).

This forum will provide you with a great opportunity to learn new skills. Of course that could lead to purchasing new equipment ;) :thumb:, but what the heck, that's what retirement is all about - having fun. I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself as I do.
 
Hello everyone picking up this thread, and thanks a lot for your warm welcomes. As the Scotland Yard murder chief said to a worried gathering: 'There is no typical murderer profile.' Guess that goes for wood carvers too! No typical profile that is! (Almost gotcha then.) And I suppose that applies to ages, aspirations, budgets, time slots available for work, resource availabilities, and of course skills and abilities and experiences. Wow, no need to warn me about Toni as one look at his avatar says it all!!!
That said, please bear with me if I pose questions that seem elementary to you, even idiotic on occasion, because to me it is all a wonderment (I think I have just made up a word) and one of the reasons why I have turned to this art form and wood activity. Remains to be seen how one progresses.
Meantime, I had to pick up a couple of pine PRC-made workbenches from my local farmshop. These were offered on a special promotion to reflect the austerity here in France at just under €40 so I bought two of the three on offer. They were offered in Australia for A$100, equivalent to around €77 so you will understand why this buy was unavoidable! I was looking to make my own workbench but firstly I couldn't find a suitable woodworker vice, expensive here even on ebay, and secondly the price of timber factored in just didn't make it worth it. As it is I have to strengthen these benches as they are somewhat lightweight for a heavy fella like me. View attachment 74574View attachment 74575PRC workbenches unavoidable deal.jpgExperimental beech mallets.jpg
I hope the uploaded pix are clear; along with the workbench is a pix of some Mallet heads I am considering. Maybe someone can help, not only on the usefulness or otherwise of the workbenches, but also on the common usage of the various types of mallets I have seen in various photos or videos. These vary from the piece of log of the High Wycombe chair bodger deep in the woods, to the very sophisticated brass or bronze circular mallet heads I've seen in catalogs, via simple axe heads used throughout Asia in Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, China et al, to the well known carpenter's wooden mallet.
My pix shows a selection of 15X5cm circular beech heads which I picked up for less than €5 for a set of four, as they were originally turned out to fit as feet on beds. They come with an average weight of 266grams, including their ready-fitted threaded screws to take a handle, which I will simply cut from a mop handle bought for $1. The threaded 'tube' to fit into the handle is relatively inexpensive so the whole package of mallets should be laughable in cost terms. The beech is supposed to be a suitable hard-wood for the job and in any case this can be protected well by covering the strike surface in rubber, a ploy which Cecil C. Carstenson recommends in his The Craft & Creation of Wood Sculpture book.
Here is what he says about mallets: "You will need a mallet to hit these chisels and gouges with. As with other tools, get a good grade carving mallet of lignum vitae or hickory. An important consideration here is the size of the mallet. If you are young and masculine you will think that you should get a big one. The typical healthy 19-year-old makes the mistake of thinking that sculpture is a violent battle of brawn and he gets a big heavy mallet. He is wrong on at least two counts. The tool edges will not hold up under that constant big bang. Neither will his arm.
"You should conserve energy, no matter how young and virile you assume yourself to be. If you become serious about sculpturing you are going to be raising and lowering that mallet hundreds of thousands of times. Be smart and get a moderate sized one. Mallets cost from $2 to $3. (in 1971)
"I wrap my mallets with rubber tape. After years and years of listening to the sharp rapping of the mallet against chisel handle I began to develop what is referred to as 'boilermaker's ear'. It affected my hearing. This worried me, and I wrapped tape around my mallets hoping to deaden the sound. It works beautifully. It also extends the life of my mallets indefinitely. I have never worn one out since wrapping them, and that has been more than 10 years. I also wrap my chisel and gouge handles in ordinary masking tape. If I don't, I find myself changing handles after eight or ten hours of tool usage. The constant pounding causes them to fray and split. I now lose handles after eight or ten years. The minute that it takes to wrap the handles is worth it."
Could you please advise what is your favoured mallet for a given purpose, its head weight, assuming you can unscrew the handle, and its total weight, and how often you make use of a mallet on your projects. I imagine that Toni and other relief carvers use the palm more often than not. Best wishes, David Bowie
 
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Hi David.

For whaetever the reason the attachments do not work for me, I can't give you my opinion.

As per mallets, I use a brass mallet of exactly 880gr ( I didn't until that I weighed it on a scale) I use it as all purpose mallet, it serves me well for strong blows when bosting out and for light and controlled tapping.

Against to what some pro and hence some amateur carvers defend with nails and teeth almost considering as a sin to use metal mallets, I have to say that although wooden mallets are great they have two things that I don't fancy.

One is that in order to have certaing momentum and weight they need to be BIG and those put a lot of strain on my wrists due to the leverage they exert and that I have to compensate in order to have precision. The other is that due to that size sometimes they get into the vision line preventing me to see what I am doing.

Likewise happens with sanding, in certain "purist" circles it is another sin, but eventually what matters is the final result that you want to achieve and if sanding is OK for you why shouldn't you use it?

What Mr. Cecil C. Carstenson recommends is obviously what comes from his experience, but honestly it is the first time I hear a carver putting tape around the head of the mallet and on the handles. I've met several pro carvers and no one of them does it, but if it works for him why shouldn't he do it?

Handles tend to split and fry when instead of with a proper mallet they are striken with a flat hammer, you can make your own trial yourself with a round stick, if you start striking it with a hammer on one end it will start mushrooming inmediately. That's why many carpenter chisels have loops on the back of the handle.

Another issue is the way one strikes and wheter the tool is perpendicular to the piece or at an angle, some begginers do not take that into account and they do break not only the handles but also de edges of their tools sometimes.

Carving is like writing, some people prefer fountain pens others biros, and others markers, and all can write can't they. So...

I would suggest you to make your own trials, and find out what suits you best, and do not take as a dogma neither what you read on books nor what I just said which is my only and completely subjective opinion. With time and practice you'll develop your own way of working, with your own tools and mallets.
 
Thanks Toni . . . . 880g seems heavy to me so would I be right in assuming you do a lot of hardwood and cross-grain work? What type of mallet did you use before you adopted the brass mallet? Incidentally, Carstenson said he ended up with three sets of chisels/gouges for soft, medium and hard woods, each set sharpened and honed with different bevel angles/degrees. I appreciate your input as of course I am in the pre-trial stage. Have yet to sort out where to source suitable timber! Your last sentence on the nail I guess. Are you an amateur or professional? Sorry about the attachments. Try these .JPG file types, both uploaded successfully: Experimental beech mallets.jpgPRC workbenches unavoidable deal.jpg

Best wishes, David
 
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