When wood carving, the wood carver essentially used about four basic carving cuts to accomplish their mission of completing a wood carving project.
Paring Cut
The paring cut is performed by slicing the carving blade towards your thumb on your dominant carving hand. Use of a good quality thumb guard is highly recommended to ensure safety while wood carving. Paring cuts are very useful for shaving or slicing detail areas in a controlled manner.
Push Cut
Push cuts are performed by slicing or pushing the carving blade away from your wood carving hand. To add control to this cutting motion, use the thumb of your supporting hand (the hand not holding the wood carving knife) to push against that back of the wood carving knife blade and aid in making a stable, controlled cut.
V-cut
V-cuts are done with the point of the wood carving knife. The application that is being used, will determine what angle to use, but in general, a v-cut is when the point of the wood carving knife is used to cut into the wood at a slight angle to make a slicing cut and then using the point again, another angled cut is made at the opposite angle into the depth of the previous cut to remove a “V” shaped piece of wood, leaving a sharp crevice. V-cuts can be useful to detail hair, fur, and other distinguishing marks on the wood carving project.
Stop Cut
A stop cut is created by using the point of the wood carving knife to cut into the wood at a perpendicular angle to the carving wood. Then an angled cut can be made at an angle into the first perpendicular cut to remove a small piece of wood. Stop cuts are very useful to keep control of accidental splitting of your carving wood. Using a stop cut will create a pre-determined stopping point for the carving knife blade as your carve into the perpendicular cut. Without the stop cut, you run the risk of cutting too far or the wood splintering and messing up your carving details.