Wood Carving tools/wood help needed....

[tiki]

Hi all.
firstly my idea. I want to carve some Tikis for the door knobs of my car, and have never really done any woodworking to speak of (except school) and I was wondering what the best wood and tools would be to use.

The tikis ideally would be about 4-5cm high, and round, maybe 1-2cm in diameter. I tried carving some out of dowl and it seemed way too hard with the crappy tools i had, using old vinyl/cork tools (??) and I couldn't get accurate sharp edges.
This was my first try, which I painted and re-sanded, its a bit rough
link here (http://www.mphcruisers.org.au/tiki.html)

I would like some advice on what sort of tools I'd need, at a reasonable price, and where I could get some ($$$??) i live in melbourne, and then an idea on the best kind of wood for finer detail and accuracy that this obviously needs.

any help would be much appreciated, thanks in anticipation.
Simon

[Charles Castle]

Tiki,
I wish you good luck with this carving. I looked at your carving to see what you want to do. Others may have better ideas but my suggestions would be the following. For timber jelutong would be easiest. Dowelling is poor quality timber, will split chip and everything else you can think of. Jelutong is very easy to carve, few problems with grain, and not very expensive.
I think you could probably do what you want with one or two knives. That would be the cheapest. Carbatec at Richmond, in their most recent catalogue, advertise a beginners set of carivng chisels for $49.50 which they say are super sharp right out of the box. There is another beginners set of 3 Pfeil chisels and a knife for $115. That would be best, but is a lot of money. Pfeil are the best carving chisels. Buying any sets other than those is a waste of money, as I know to my cost. I have bought two sets in the past for a lot of dollars, and I have never used most of them.
A visit to Carbatec and a talk to Karl Lutz, who is a carver, would see you right. Unfortunatel Carbatec don't carry as many carving tools as they used to.
If you want more suggestions from me on a basic set of carving chisels let me know, but each chisel is about $40-$50 for good ones.
Good luck.
Charles Castle

[ubeaut]

Simon - Charles hit the nail right on the head. Really good advice. You should also seek help with the sharpening of any tools you buy as this is the most important thing you will ever learn in reguards to carving.

Cheers - Neil http://www.ubeaut.biz/wave.gif