Thread: Small projects power carving

You are on the right track for the rough-out. I run an 8" Ryobi band saw, it's OK.
The one single problem I face is that when I tip the carving over, to take off a corner at 45 degrees (freehand), the carving bumps into the upper blade-guiding leg mechanism. ie = I can't get as close to the roughout line as I'd like.
As long as I can get the carving clamped down, I can compensate with a crooked knife.
As for the actual power carving, I've seen entire house doors relief carved with a Dremel. The guy just can't seem to commit to hogging out the rough with gouges!
For that part, I have no suggestions.

For me, a bigger bandsaw that could cut 10-15cm thick would be the costly but highly effective answer. The Ryobi is insanely sensitive to a dull blade = attempts to wander all over!

Band saws are fantastic for creating blanks... nothing better in my opinion. Personally I wouldn't go smaller than 14" but if space is a premium then they are certainly better than nothing.

As for power rotary cutters; using these in a whittling style (holding both the work and the tool rather than bolting the work down), has the potential to do you an injury. Gloves aren't much help either because if the burr touches it, chances are it will try to wind it round the shaft along with you finger. Best case scenario is a broken drive shaft. I do use rotary cutters in an Archer (similar to a Foredom) but I've got quite a few years of practice in this style of carving with a blade. Personally I found this experience invaluable when first taking up the power carver. Based on the number of cuts I got learning to safely handle blades, I wouldn't like to have tried it the other way around with the power carver first...

Finally, power carving throws an awful lot of dust. You need to consider some way to extract this from the air you breath or it can really mess you up. Masks are a quick and easy way out of this but its not a great solution cause the dust settles on EVERYTHING in your shop and before long you've got it several mm thick over every surface. Again, its only a personal opinion, but I'd have the extractor in place before I started power carving, or set up outside where it doesn't matter quite so much.

Thought santa might have brought me a band saw this Christmas but alas he mustn't have got my letter. Back to the jig saw and what ever else. Has anyone tried the ozito power carver?, I saw one in Bunnings for $50.00 and wondered if it's any good or just cheap crap.

In my experience, most of these Dremil 'clones' are ok if you can find one with a flexible shaft that turns true. The way to test this is in the store, before you buy it, ask for a bit to be put in the hand piece and turn it on. If it turns true, ok...if it oscillates at all... walk away.

These clones and even the original Dremil are 'lightweights' however. They don't stand up to hard work very well. You could use one to get the feel of power carving and if you decide you like it and want to continue then I suggest you invest in something more robust like an Archer or a Foredom.

Thanks Whittling, I think I'll forget the Ozito power carver and save for something better, the gouge attachments look to be very average quality as you would expect at that price. Really should get my priorities right and try and find a small band saw.

Robthechisel: Stop right there. A so-called "small" band saw, maybe like the 8" Ryobi that I have, really is inadequate if you hope to rough out carvings with it. It has to cut 10cm+ stock to be worth the money for the use you might get.
There have been many times when cutting 7-10cm would have saved me a lot of hand-saw time.
I bought the Ryobi, and a Ryobi 25cm table saw, as both were on sale for $100 each.
Light weight units, Jump around. But, I can "make do".