Thread: Carver Support

Might be useful for some particular style of carving, but general purpose? No.

I usually leave some waste wood to one side or end of a carving. I add a stick with a couple of screws and that can be clamped to anything in any orientation.
Most of the time, I have a folded cheap cotton blanket with a sheet of that non-skid foam mesh on top.
It's common to cut out a blank and start carving. Sometimes, I carve first and cut later = I made a peg board with dowel joiner peg holes at 2" intervals in a grid. I drill one or more 3/8 holes in the waste wood around the carving pattern. One peg& hole is the axle to swivel the piece around. Any other peg in any other hole on the board jams the work rigidly with no clamps at all (think I posted pix a while back).

If I had to replace all this junk with more fresh junk? $5.00

I use this thing to rest work on while using burrs...pine and an old towel covered in leather

Originally Posted by raav

No - not the emotional kind.

I haven't actually seen one in real life, but they don't look that complicated from this pic.

They aren't that complicated but they are pretty massive. I'd be interested in seeing what you come up with as an alternative.

On some wood carvings I find that there's so much to do that I can leave the wood clamped up in some position for quite some time.
Other carvings demand that I can flip-flop, turn it around and over and do so quickly.

I don't need a fixture that's a time-consuming struggle to readjust the position of the wood.
I don't think I'm impatient but I have every intention of spending most of my time carving.

I don't need a fixture that raises the wood to chest or eye level. I can't stand for long times any more but I can sit and carve for hours. I have a comfortable drafting chair on casters and no space left in my shop for a desk-height bench, not even 100x100cm.
I have a folded cotton blanket+nonskid foam sheet. I made a no-clamp peg board.
I hope that I've posted something here that gives you an idea.

hmmm

I have been using a Veritas vice which is pretty good for some applications so far. Not hefty enough for some other stuff I want to start on. Its dead easy to rotate the work, which I like. Only down side is that height.

If I sit down I start thinking of food...a Pavlovian dilemma.

I tried something along the towel/log support system for the arm on that bigger piece but it drove me nuts. The peg system may have come in handy there.

I'll keep thinking

Gracias