Thread: new to carving please help!

Welcome:
Woodcarving is very satisfying work to do. There are more than half a dozen very distinctively different carving styles. Each needs some fairly specific tools to make it happen. Hard to suggest a tool selection without maybe you buying tools for a carving style that you don't care for. Having said that, you can get a really good look at all of these in Youtube.
- chip carving
- flat plane carving
- relief carving
- carving in the round, 3D stuff, all the way from ultra miniatures done in pencil lead to monumental totem poles
- chainsaw carving
- wood cut printing
- wood engraving
some people work exclusively in cottonwood bark, some are extremely photo-realistic,
some are much more stylized than literal.
Me? I like to do 3D carvings which are quite stylized animals and birds. Got serious not too many years ago. I like to use western red cedar, very little else.

Have you had a look into the woodcarvingillustrated forums yet?

this is more or less what im wanting to get into Carving The Simple Seahorse Part 2 - YouTube

stuff like this maybe do some wimsicle houses indian heads but this general type

this is the general type of wood carving im intrested in i would like to try all diffrent types one day but i would like to start with something like this.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1DjaEYSnZg]Carving The Scout 3 Dimensional Indian Head Part 7 - YouTube[/ame]

im guessing this would be 3-d carving?

G'day Newguy,

Welcome to the forum.

RV is right when he comments that it a BIG subject... lots of different paths are possible. Its very hard to get it all from the internet as its not a responsive medium... all the information is only going one way. It is good for having a closer look at the various aspects of this craft but eyeball to eyeball feedback is still the best way in my opinion.

Since there is a club near you, what are the possibilities of contacting the club secretary by phone and explaining your situation? Maybe asking about personal tuition on a convenient evening from one of the members who might be willing to spend a bit of time with a beginner to help get him started. Woodcarvers are a remarkably helpful lot.. there might very well be someone near you willing to spend a little time with you helping you to get through the maze at the start.

Just a thought.

yea i been thinking of going over there Tuesday morning since the meeting is not far from work and see if i could get someone willing to help me on an off evening or something i just really not wanting to buy the wrong tools and make my life harder then it wouldn't be as fun and i wouldn't stick with it (right tool for right job) makes it more fun

Newguy88, you are on your own. The idea of holding a carving in one hand and flicking at it with a knife sharper than a razor blade really churns my guts.

I would like to get into other types sometime I would really like chainsaw carving but I don't think the apartments will like that lol

They might not like it but I bet if you wore a hockey mask a la Jason from Friday 13th you wouldn't hear a peep

Wellcome.

I only started woodcarving 12 months ago, so I can appreciate where you are. Like you, I had no one to help or direct me.

In someways it has been beneficial that way because sometimes being in company of experts can completly over whelm you unless the experts still remember the struggles they had when they first took up carving.

Some newbies to carving have a vast knowledge of art and woodwork that they can draw on. They can see things in a piece of wood that a real newbie cannot. All they have to do is bring what they see out of the wood and they are half way there.

I feel I am just entering that zone where if I am going to carve something I have to see it in the wood. All I have to do is cut away what does not belong and I am well on my way.

You have been fortunate in the fact that two of the respondents to your question, Robson Valley who is in Canada and Whittling in Australia have a vast experience in different styles of wood carving.

But more importantly, they have vast international experience in that they realise the wood in one Country is not necessarily the same in another. Robson has lived in Australia and Whittling has settled in Australia from North America.

Both have been particularly helpful to me because while they may have a particular style which is theirs they do not have a black or white approach when dealing with others.

The biggest challenge for me is understanding what carving is and what style I am most suited to. Sometimes what you think you would like to do is challenged by the materials you are forced to work with and hence you start to develop your own style.

Wellcome to our forum.

Pete

newguy88: Pete has just posted a very carefully worded description (in my case) of what is otherwise known as "the blind leading the blind."
1. Many of my carvings have a Pacific Northwest Native Art appearance to them. In terms of design elements, they are dramatically different. Why? Because I am not related to them, I refuse to copy them. Eyes, feathers, faces, antlers & horns, flames, beaks and decorative stone and shell additions, my carvings are really very different. This has turned out recently to be a very valuable philosophy when talking to native carvers.
2. I have started many carvings. Some really died. Others could be referred to as "works in progress." That's another way of saying that:
a) I quit because I lost interest,
b) I quit because I don't know how to tackle the next part (very common)
c) in that day and time, I didn't have the variety of carving tools that I do now to go back to it/them.
3. Seeing things (to carve) in wood. Releasing them. Doesn't happen to me as often as I'd like. Doesn't happen the same way as before. Sometimes, I see things in the pieces of wood as I work to split log chunks up in the mountains. Other times, the wood pieces are near me, I can glance at them almost every day for six months and then, all of a sudden, the carving is perfectly clear. The real downside is that I have to have a lot of slabs and log pieces to look at! May 50 pieces, some 1/2 logs even, beside my bench. Plenty more outdoors piles on the dog houses to keep them in the yard during winter storms.
4. To be fair, most of the time, I get an idea. Research some pictures, make some sketches. If I like that, I try to make "final" drawings. Next, find the wood. Nothing? Split off a slab from a log, plane the sapwood flat, cut it in half and glue the sapwoods together. Now I have a big enough piece. Several times, I've been able to buy ideal pieces in stacks of fence timber, etc.
So, that's about it. I do some mock-up carvings in styrofoam. Crude, yes. Just to see how the part might look or fit, beaks in particular.

You need some soft wood to make cuts and marks in to see how the tools work.
You must learn to sharpen tools "carving sharp." If you're so inclined, that's a skill that you can sell/barter with others.
I am very fond of Mora (Sweden) Equus 171LH narrow and 171RH narrow "hook" or "hoof" knives. They have straight edges, curved blades and come sharpened at a bevel angle of 30 degrees. Go to a place that sells farrier's supplies. They are about as dull as a wet week. Change the bevel to 20 degrees, really sharpen and hone them. I now have 2 pairs. Last evening, I was carving with one in each hand.

welcome to the forum

Explanation 2c) is real. Yesterday, I blew the dust off a carving that I put away maybe a year or more ago. A few more tools, different tools from all that I had back then. The fun part was to study the old carving and try to figure out what I had been doing, what shapes were being worked on, etc. Very productive day.
The newer tools cut the wood in ways which I need to get some parts carved the way my head tells me they should appear. I learned that, using the newer tools, on newer carving projects.

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

Explanation 2c) is real. Yesterday, I blew the dust off a carving that I put away maybe a year or more ago. A few more tools, different tools from all that I had back then. The fun part was to study the old carving and try to figure out what I had been doing, what shapes were being worked on, etc. Very productive day.
The newer tools cut the wood in ways which I need to get some parts carved the way my head tells me they should appear. I learned that, using the newer tools, on newer carving projects.

As a beginner on this journey myself, reading into what Robson has said, here is my interpretation based on my journey.

The one thing I need in carving, is patience, I have been forced to look at the long haul. Sometimes I have to wait until knowledge catches up to the work in progress I am doing.. This is the most infuriating thing about carving, yet it can be one of its beauty.

Many times I have to temporarilly walked away, because to my regret, pushing on, when I know I should stop and have a break, usually results in disaster. Others may not go through this process, maybe it is just me and my position in the learning curve.

The important thing to me is absorbing what you can and surrounding yourself with caring people who have the patience and desire to help you on your journey. These people need not be personally close at hand.

I have several people like Robson, Whittling and a guy called Steve Reid in the States who have been extremly helpful. They know, or at least I hope they know, that what they tell me is valued and while I may not appear to be acting on it at the present time, be assured by osmosis, it is gradually sinking in and adding to my knowledge bank.

Sometimes we can be overwhelmed by information overload at the start of any pursuit, so we need time out occassionaly to clear our head.

Pete

Originally Posted by STAR

Many times I have to temporarilly walked away, because to my regret, pushing on, when I know I should stop and have a break, usually results in disaster. Others may not go through this process, maybe it is just me and my position in the learning curve.
Pete

I think we've all been at the "stop and think for a while" point (have several in my shed now ) and I know I've pushed past that to my regret before now.