Why is Symmetry Important in Wood Carving?

 Beginner Wood Carving Information, Wood Carving Tips  1 Response »
May 292011
 

It is very important to keep your wood carvings symmetrical as much as possible.  For the most part, most animals, humans, and other wood carving subjects are symmetrical or equal on both sides of a center line.  It can be a real challenge to keep things equal when doing wood carving projects.  It is not always enough to make a visual inspection.  Here a few tips to keep your wood carvings symmetrical:

  • Draw a center line on your wood carving blanks and when the line is removed during the wood carving process, replace the line at all times.
  • Use a flexible fabric tape measure for multi-dimensional areas.
  • Use a laser level to create a perfectly straight line to use as a guide for drawing in your center line over a contoured surface.
  • Look at the carving from all angles.
  • Have someone else take a look at the wood carving at different points in the wood carving process.

Along with proper proportions, keeping your wood carvings symmetrical will ensure that your final wood carvings are pleasing to the eye of the observer.

Keep Your Carving Knife Sharp and Safe When Not In Use

 Beginner Wood Carving Information, Wood Carving Tips  1 Response »
May 282011
 

As important as it is to the success of your wood carving, to keep your wood carving knives sharp while carving, it is equally imperative that you keep the blades from getting damaged when not using them.  If you use some type of tool box or carrying devise for you wood carving tools and knives, they will have an opportunity to hit together and damage each other, if not protected properly.  Not being protected against each other is also a safety risk to you as the wood carver also.  If you have unprotected sharp edges, you run the risk of cutting yourself when you reach for your wood carving tool and wood carving knives in the transporting container.

There a few really good ways to protect your wood carving edges: Continue reading »

How to Determine Direction of Wood Grain for Wood Carving

 Beginner Wood Carving Information, Wood Carving Tips  No Responses »
May 282011
 

When experienced wood carvers talk to beginning wood carvers, they will instruct them to carve with the grain of the carving wood as much as possible.   When carving with grain, your wood carving tools and knives will cut easier and move more freely.  When carving against the grain, the wood carving tools and knives tend to hang or tear the wood more often.  Also, when it comes to detail carving areas that stick out on the wood carving, if the grain is not running correctly, those areas may break off.  There is nothing more frustrating than to be making your final detail touch ups and have a piece of your wood carving break off.  Therefore, wood carvers need to determine the direction of the grain before beginning a wood carving project. Continue reading »

Sassafras Trees for Walking Sticks

 Walking Sticks  No Responses »
May 272011
 

About a year ago, as part of my interest in wood carving and creating walking sticks, I have found that many other walking stick carvers like to use Sassafras.  They say that they Sassafras trees make strong walking sticks and smell good while you carve.  That got me interested in trying to find some Sassafras trees to try out.

After doing some research about what the Sassafras tress look like and the leaf shapes, I set out to find some Sassafras.  I finally found some less than 1/2 mile from my house.  There are several small Sassafras saplings growing along a fence row.  In fear that they fence row may get cleared before the trees get big enough to use for making a walking stick, I attempted to transplant about 9 of them about a week ago. Continue reading »

Wood Spirit (Hillbilly) Walking Sticks (May 2011)

 Walking Sticks  No Responses »
May 262011
 

In the past couple weeks, I have started to work on some walking stick ideas again.  My focus when I first started wanting to learn wood carving, was on woodspirit walking sticks.  I have always thought that they looked really neat and would be fun to do.  Getting the faces to look like human faces, is the challenge when attempting wood spirits.

Hillbilly walking sticks 7

I call them wood spirits, because that is what they are known as primarily, but I really don’t like the name “wood spirit”, it may imply to others that we are worshiping the wood or making some sort of idol out the walking stick. That is not my intention at all.  So I try to make my “wood spirit” walking sticks look like hillbillies.  Therefore, I sometimes call them Hillbilly Walking Sticks. :)

Here a couple hillbilly walking sticks that I have worked on in the last couple weeks, and one that I did the last part of 2010.  The first two are my current hillbilly walking sticks in progress: Continue reading »

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