Productivity while producing nothing

[Larry Marshall]

I'm a newbie. I've done a single, simple carving. I did it poorly. Beyond 'put the skinny part of the blade into the wood', I know little of using the tools.

It was with that background that I decided to do something about that. Yes, I could have just done more carvings. Certainly I'll have to do a lot of that if I'm going to become a good carver. But I wondered, what if I just start cutting some wood, using as many knives as I can scrape together? Will I learn anything? Will I improve my skill by concentrating on manipulating a knife to make different cuts without the distraction of concern over shape?

Now that I've done it I think the answer to all of those questions was a resounding 'yes.' I suggest that other newbies do the same. Grab a block of scrap, run around and find all the knives you have available to you....and make a bunch of paring and push cuts with each knife. Try to identify advantages and disadvantages. Don't expect too much in terms of conclusions but the thinking, I think, is as important as making hard decisions.

Then, start doing incisions, cutting back to them, creating v-grooves along an incision, and do this with each of your knives. Pay particular attention to where the tip of your knife is (and where it should be). You can do a few dozen of these in a short period of time and if your experience is like mine, you'll become much better at putting your knife tip where you want it, judging depth of cut, etc. You're probably better than I am but I'm still far from skilled in these areas but I've done several carvings worth of these cuts and I did them in half an hour. That's gotta help.

Here are the knives I used. You'll note that I'm knife-poor, though I've just gotten a new Helvie detail knife that I like very much. From left to right these are:

Frost (Mora) short-blade knife: This is my shop knife and lives in my shop apron. I honed it up well and found that the curved, longer blade is very useful for roughing out a block of wood. The downside is that the blade is fairly thick.

Utility knife: This is Lynn's "Old Reliable" and I can understand why he likes it. Once honed it's quite sharp and I find the deep blade to be both a help and a hindrance. As I said, I'm a newbie so those assessments shouldn't be belabored or believed. You decide. I like this knife, though, and you can't beat the price.

Xacto & scalpel: These are the knives I'm most familiar with from my miniatures work. I suspect the Xacto would be useful for really miniature work but otherwise I was summarily unimpressed in using these to work in flat-plane carving.

Wells 'regular' short knife: I found recently that there are two versions of the "short" (1 3/4") knife. The 'detail' version has a blade with less depth than the one you see in the photo. I think that would be preferred as I have trouble getting this knife into small places. Otherwise, the thin blade and great handle will cause me to use this knife often.

small pocket knife: I carry this mostly because I was given it and it's useful for cutting string and stuff like that. Once honed, it can be quite sharp but doesn't hold an edge very long. I like the smallish blade, though.

Frankly, I think what knife you use is far less important than being able to put tip and edge where you want it. I will continue to do 'practice' sessions as the number of cuts one can do in a short time helps learn both of these things. Give it a try - you might find the same thing.

[chuckbolton]

one thing ive learned while watching many of the instructors-- they use a knife for most of the carving--- they arent always picking up another tool-- it speeds up your carving-- and the real point is-- learn to make the tool do what you need to do-- dont necessarily have a different tool for each chore.