[mark yundt]

Ironic,,,was just talking to Claude about this very hold on another post.As well as a variety of other positions that are used.

[Joy]

Thanks again! I will give that a try.

Mark, I thought I had read all your posts...must have missed that one.

[RussL.]

The clear wax with hot air gun and the fingerless glove for clean wood and hand health are great tips!

"Worth the price of admission!" we used to say at fly fishing/tying seminars when the guest speaker presented a particularly worthy bit of advice!

Thank you & all the best,

Russ

[Thor]

Thanks for those treats! The pictures say a thousand words.

Now, question, is Chris Pye right or left handed? or would that matter in that position? I use a similar way of guiding my tools, because when I first started carving, I read and looked at pictures of Nora Hall using that position, and tried to adapt to it from the get-go. I do not know if I'm doing it correctly or not.

More, more! This is so good.
Thor

[mdallensr]

I took pictures of the other carvers' projects during our "rounds". It was obovious right away that most of the carvers had challenged themselves with some tough projects. So, even though everyone was supposed to hit the ground running, most had some start-up issues ranging from how to hold the blank to roughing-out to design issues.

Ben, my bench mate, arrived with an excellent clay model of his Great Dane's head and neck, and about half a walnut tree for a blank. Terry down-sized the blank and Ben blasted away on that blank for most of the first week to get it looking like a dog's head.

[mdallensr]

I checked my notes and found that Chris Pye included his "high angle grip" in his article in the summer 2007 issue of WCI. Chris Pye is right handed. After working with the high-angle grip for a few days, it became kind of normal. I still had to think about it occasionally, but it does make sense. If you line up your tools with the edges toward you, and pick up the tool near the tip with your right hand, it flips up into the carving position almost automatically and you're ready to carve. The other two grips are the mallet grip and the low-angle, power grip. I need to work on that "automatically" part for awhile.

You'll note from the photos that none of us got carded when we stopped for the happy hour. I think Ben was the youngest of the twelve, and the top end had to be close to 80 years of age. That isn't unusual for wood carvers, is it?

Some other photos of Ben's dog: