Top Ten Underrated Uses for Carving Tools

Tongue-in-cheek take on common carving tools and materials.

#1  CA glue: To glue your thumb to the piece of wood you are trying to replace back to the carving. Also serves to glue cut skin back together and glue your thumb to the cut.

#2  Bandaids: To cover the CA glue you use to glue together a cut and keep your thumb out of the glue. Also works to hold gauze against the glue long enough to adhere it to the cut.

#3  Acetone: To un-glue fingers stuck together, or to remove the gauze stuck inside a cut. WARNING: Feels like molten lava inside said cut.

#4  Carving Glove: To make your spouse feel better when you start carving. Also gives your spouse a distraction from the blood while he or she is driving you to the emergency room for stitches.

#5  Thumbguard: A prosthetic callous for your thumb that you removed with surgical precision with your last knife cut. If the last cut was deep enough to require a CA glue patch, a permanent prosthetic callous for said thumb.

#6  Carver’s screw: Similar to a medieval thumbscrew, but used to smash your pinkie finger between the base of a carving and the workbench. Dastardly versions require the use of a wrench to tighten down, and said wrench always drops out of reach as soon as pressure is applied to the pinkie.

#7  Aggressive rotary carving bits: An inexpensive substitute for professional micro-dermibrasion treatment and other forms of plastic surgery. CAUTION: Check with your service provider before buying a rotary power carver repackaged as do-it-yourself face lift kit.

#8  Carving mallet: Meat tenderizer for the web of skin between your thumb and forefinger. Also works well as a distraction when you drop it on your toe after tenderizing said web of skin.

#9  Woodburner: Mystical tool that heats up and cools off at will, usually cooling off when touching wood, and heating up when exposed to skin.

#10  Sharpening Stone: Expensive paper weights used to hold down reference material. Also work well to beat unruly carving tools and bits into submission.