Thread: First crack

carving set.jpgthe set, whats useful to re hone?
first crack.jpgjust to see, was not intended to be good just wanted to see if the my grind was going to work and what I could do with these two chisels. I have never carved before, negative criticism welcome
factory grind.jpgout of the box, what a punish
my grind.jpgmy grind, Is this acceptable? I used 300g diamond plate to re grind and a 1200g plate followed by 4000 waterstone because thats what I have, stroped with white compound and used dowl with wet and dry 2000 and dowl with stropping compound. thats just what I have. finished pretty sharp it cut through the knot ok, timbers southern silky oak. needed to be restropped often. the chisels are marked crv but dont hold an edge like a nice carbon bench chisel.

im not sure there even made to specific scale but a quick look at a chart on google and I believe they may be or close to;

#7 25mm
#1 bent 19mm
#13 14mm V
skew 12mm
#13 16mm v
#1 13mm
#1 6mm
#3 16mm
#7 6mm
#7 10mm
#5 bent 12mm

In what order should I prioritise getting them working?

I suspect a few of us have similar starter sets and they are probably ok for the odd carving job. My set does not have any bent chisels. I mainly used the sweeps and the skew and they have done all I needed of them. The 25 mm sweep (curve) has done most work and I recently bought a better quality larger no 7 sweep for carving large jobs like chair seats.
That is probably a reasonable way to go. Potter with what you hav3 and as you find what you need, buy good quality chisels individually. If you look at an experienced carvers tools, they will not be a matched set.
Bruce

The ones I use by far the most are #7 and #3. I have a 12mm #12 for doing the outlines and occasionally use #1 for flats. (Then again, my set now consists of 105 chisels, 90 of which are Pfeil. You and I will never NEED that many)

I do like your first attempt at carving. Well done.

Originally Posted by Nickwcw

im not sure there even made to specific scale but a quick look at a chart on google and I believe they may be or close to;

#7 25mm
#1 bent 19mm
#13 14mm V
skew 12mm
#13 16mm v
#1 13mm
#1 6mm
#3 16mm
#7 6mm
#7 10mm
#5 bent 12mm

In what order should I prioritise getting them working?

Hello, Nick and welcome to carving!
I was given the same set a few years back. In my opinion, the #3, #5, #7 plus the smallest V tool will be the most useful of this set. My set currently sits on a shelf and I haven't touched it in several years. The re-grind you showed is much better - I had to do the same. RV's angle comments are spot on. The current gouges I use is a small set of Pfiel I bought, and a Flexcut beginners set I got about 20 years ago. I still use ever gouge in the Flexcut every day. My Pfiel set is used for larger work which I don't do all that often. Most of my carvings are caricatures in the round from 25mm down to 5mm.

One of the best resources for relief carving is LSIrish.com free printable patterns for wood carving, pyrography Lora is an accomplished relief carver and her site has hundreds of patterns. Some are for sale, some are free. She recently completed a tutorial on carving a flying goose. She goes into great detail about the tools she uses, the depth layers of the carving, etc. Lots of photos of the work in progress. Relief Carving the Flying Canada Goose Tutorial -

Woodcarving Illustrated Surprisingly, she doesn't use a lot of expensive tools.

Hope this helps you.
Claude

thanks this is helpful info. Claude the brand is She.K. I was thinking the the big 25mm would be handy but I'm not looking forward to the tune up, I'm assuming a grinding wheel would be a big no no with the heat generation. I will definitely look at that site. There is a local community wood workshop here in Caloundra the few times I have been there I have not noticed people carving mostly boxmakers doing some really nice work, I have been using the machinery. I'm sure there is some good knowledge to be found, a big problem for me is they open 7am to 11am and I am far from retirement. my work does give me some time off during the week but being away from home so much with work there's always so much to do! ill have to make an effort to ask around. Any Sunny Coasters on here?