Carving hair?

[Carvity_Carve]

Hi, absolutely brand new to the forum. Been lurking for a bit, and decided to join. I've only been carving (with a knife and a bit of chisels) for about two months, already love it. Recently I've been trying to carve hair, mainly beards, and I was wondering if anyone had any advice for learning how to. Any good patterns out there I could use for practice?

Thanks.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

pick something a little bigger, it takes an awful little knife to carve a hair! lol

http://carverscompanion.com/Ezine/Vo...s/BTravis.html

Depending on the size of your carving and the size of your carving tools a 'v' gouge does a good job, but slow. A flex-shaft tool such as a Dremel, Foredom, etcmakes hair fairly easy. I use use a small round flat stone that I ground the inside edge at a 45 degree angle and for finer hair I use a small round flat diamond burr (a 16 bit set at harbor freight was about 5 or 6 dollars).

[dart]

Welcome Carvity_Carve. Harold Enlow has very good instructions. Thanks Rick as I needed the instructions also. Jim

Thanks for the info Ive been having trouble with that myself. Im also a new member and new to stick carving. Ive been doing folk art fish decoys and fishing lures for a while and lurking here for a few months.

Tom

[Carvity_Carve]

Thanks for the help all! I seem to have more success with the V tool, I was fiddling with the Dremel a while ago and I acquired a weird texture that was very unhairlike :. I guess the key here is study study study practice practice practice, huh?

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

I use a stone in my dremel and it resembles the head feathers of birds...but not hair. Some of the carvers prefer the small gouge to do hair versus the v tool, tried it once, but didn't really get the hang of the gouge for hair.

[Donna_T]

Hi all,
I've been on vacation (babysitting with 3-year old granddaughter) in Vermont so haven't had time to check this site for a couple of weeks.

Welcome Carvity, to our source of good carving advice from carvers who have tried about everything and are willing to share what they've learned.

When I first started carving hair (heads of hair or beards) I would first pretty well smooth it and then put texture in with a v-tool. Now, I like to shape it first with a veiner of around 1/4'to 1/2' and put hills, valleys, dips, curls, etc in with the biggest tool I can....then go back and use a smaller tool to add irregular lines---never straight ones!!--always curving and overlapping. Sometimes I like to finish up with a few v-tool marks on any uncarved/flat spots and sometimes I like to come back and lightly burn in additional marks.

I would agree...Harold Enlow has some of the best instructions for making hair. Consider buying his 'HAIRBALL' to use for a reference--it is a resin casting with braids, curls, and all kinds of hair looks.

Again, welcome and come back often.
Donna T

Also Jeff Phares has a book on carving hair really good book with step by step instructions.
Colin