[windsong]

Hi all
I've been wanting to get into carving for years and i found your site.I have been coming to check it out at last two or there time a day.And i enjoy reading the topics.I'm very intrested in the flat plane type of carving i want to carve smaller types of things.
windsong

[Eddy Smiles]

Greetings and Salutations! Welcome aboard. You didn't give any indication of where you hail from but a good start would be to pay your local wood carving store a visit and take out a subscription to Wood Carving Illustrated, particularly Issue #27, Summer 2004 where they provide a pattern and show you how to carve a flat plane folk figure.

[gene messer]

Welcome ... it's good you have a specific type of carving you like .. Flat plane is a fun way to carve .. Harley Refsal is the best teacher on doing flat plane and he has several books on the subject .. If I can help you in any way myself .. please only ask for I do alot of flat plane work .. I know there are other wonderful carvers on this forum who do the same ... Ia'm enclosing a pic of what small flat plane figure looks like .. see if this is the type of carving you like ..
God Bless
Gene

[windsong]

Hi Gene
Yes that is the carving i want to learn you do very good carving i like them very much.I want to be able to take what i'm working on with me.That way it does not take a lot of tools .I just want to carve for the fun of it. What would be the first tools i will need?
Eddy i live in the southeast part of ky. in a little town called Hyden the county is Leslie Co.
Windsong

[Bartster]

windsong,

hello and welcome to the board i to carve a few flat-planes from time to time.the main tools you need are a knife and maybe a couple of v-tools. it is all in what you get use too. i beleive harley refsal teaches flat-plane using only a knife. it just depends on how much detail you want, i use a few more gouges on the faces because i like a little more detail in my faces.

bart

[Eddy Smiles]

Windsong... Unless you've got a good carving shop nearby, you're not all that far away from the Smokey Mountain Woodcarvers Shop in Townsend, Tennessee, your side of the Smokies. Looks to be about 100 miles or so as the crow flies. If you've got the wheels it might behove you to take a spin over there some weekend and check the store out. They have a good selection of books, carving instruments and wood. You might also want to check out their website at http://www.woodcarvers.com/

Good luck!

[windsong]

Hi Eddy
It sure would be nice to go see there store.But I'm 0n call 24/7 days a week.i,ve not had a vacation in 18 years.So i do most of my shopping over the enter net.So if you could tell me where to get some instrution on the flat plane carving and what type of knife and the blade lenth to ask for i wll see if i can get it. Thanks for all your help
Windsong

[Mark N. Akers]

Welcome to the site Windsong,it full of really neat people.

[Claude]

With a subject line like that, the only proper response is: "'Lo"

Another "small stuff" type of carving is the Jenga Block Challenge. You can find the details and see most of the carvings here: Jenga Blocks: Anyone taken the challenge?



Claude

[Eddy Smiles]

There are probably others that are better suited to make a recommendation than I but here's how I'd start if I was you and the reason that I say this is because I have these in my own personal library.

You might try ordering Mike Shipley's Wood Carving A Country Bear ( BK371) or Wood Carving Country Folk (BK417). All of the figures in these books are in flat plane style and are fun and whimsical to carve.

If you don't have any knives or gouges at all then at a minimum I'd invest in something like a Flexcut 1-1/4" Detail knife (KN032) or equal and a beginning set of gouges and V's, such as a Flexcut 5 piece travel gouge set ( SK106 ) or 11 piece set (SK107 ) or equal. And don't forget to get a regular strop (SH006) and polishing compound (SH005)for your knife and a Flexcut slipstrop (SH100) for your gouge set.

These are only suggestions and if there are 500 carvers who visit this forum you'll get 500 different suggestions. What I'd really do if I was you is I'd give the folks at Smokey Mountain Woodcarvers a call. Their number is on their web site. Ask Mac Proffitt for his opinion. He wont steer you wrong. Like they claim, "they're carvers helping carvers!"

Just to prove my point, when I went to purchase a woodburning unit I contacted one of their competitors and asked for a recommendation. By the time he got through making the list I couldn't afford what he said I needed. Then I contacted Mac and he gave me a basic start-up recommendation. I've had my unit close to two years now, use it all the time and have only purchased one addition tip and still haven't figured out why I needed it.