Alexander Grabovetskiy, woodcarver, School of Woodcarving
What do you carve in the Carving Hazelnuts course?
Quick answer: You carve a cluster of hazelnuts in high relief out of one solid block of American basswood. Every part of it grows out of that single board, husks and leaves and stem included. Nothing is sawn out on a bandsaw and glued onto a background, which is how most relief panels get built.
The finished panel is about the size of a sheet of printer paper. In inches that is 8 1/4 by 11. In centimeters, near enough to 21 by 28. Nothing here has to land on the exact number, and I say so on camera about four times, because people freeze up over an eighth of an inch when the shape is what matters.
These nuts are personal for me. I was born in Russia and we had hazelnut bushes all around. Not trees. Bushes. We made fishing rods out of them and whatever else a boy makes when he has a knife and time. So I am not carving from a photograph.
I taught this same project years ago at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking and people kind of liked it, and they got really good results. This time I go further into the round.
What wood do you carve this on
American basswood. In Europe you buy the same tree as limewood or linden, and in the Spanish speaking world it is tilo. One species, four names, and it is the wood almost every carving school in the world starts you on.
My two glue blocks came from opposite ends of the country, South Carolina and Washington state. Same species, but one came out pinkish and the other yellowish. It does not bother me at all. Later I may cook up a natural stain and even that color difference out, though I am not promising it, because I stay busy and I do not like to promise and then not deliver.
What you need | What I used |
|---|---|
Main block | Basswood, about 2 inches thick, roughly 50mm |
Glue-on blocks | 25mm offcuts, cut around 80 by 80mm |
Glue | Titebond II |
Pattern transfer | Carbon paper or graphite paper |
Holding | Screw clamps and two bench stops |
Why glue blocks on top instead of buying thick stock
You can buy 16 quarter and carve the whole thing from one slab. Then you spend the extra days digging out fiber you already paid for, and you get a darker piece of wood for the trouble.
There is a second reason and it matters more than people expect. Tracing your pattern onto one flat board is easy. Nothing sticks up in your way and the carbon paper lies flat, so you see every line you drew. I still use the same beat up piece of carbon paper I have had for years.
I glue the blocks on after the tracing, not before. Where the nuts and the leaves need height, that is where a block goes.
How thick is the block and how deep does the background go
The main board is about two inches, roughly 50mm. Glue 25mm on top where you need it and you are sitting at about 75mm of wood to carve into. The background comes down to 5mm, which is 3/16 of an inch.
Not 6mm. People ask me why, and it is not fussiness. I want the thickness for the carving, and 5mm still lets me drop the finished panel into a groove in a frame later if I decide to frame it.
Before the first gouge touches the panel I draw a line about 6mm in from the edge all the way around. Call it the rough line. The final 5mm comes later, once the shape tells me where it wants to sit.
Which gouges actually do the work
A number 9, 20mm, does most of the heavy removal. At the roughing stage the bigger tool is always better, because a big edge takes a controlled bite and a small one skates.
Then it gets smaller. Number 7 gouges in a few sizes, from 7mm up to an inch and a quarter. My veiners go down to a half millimeter number 11, and that tiny one is what cleans inside the husk where nothing else will fit. There is a number 5 on the bench, a number 3, a number 2, and a one inch skew chisel I keep picking up whether I planned to or not. My V tool is a number 16 ground at 35 degrees, an 18th century one by Henning and Bros, though the number 11s handle that work if you do not own a V tool.
A note on numbers, because it trips people up. My number 3 is an Ashley Iles. Buy the same shape from a European maker and it comes stamped as a number 2. Match the curve of the edge, not the number on the handle.
Sharp. All of them, sharp. We carve into end grain on this project and a dull gouge tears basswood instead of slicing it, so the strop matters more here than any new tool you could buy.
How do you hold the panel while you carve
Clamp it solid. I run the grain away from me and attack from the side, which gives me far better control than working from the front, though I switch depending on the shape.
I hold the panel with screw clamps from Veritas and a couple of bronze stops that drop into the 3/4 inch holes in my bench. There are magnets in them so they do not fall through and clutter the bench. You do not need Veritas. Any solid stop holds a panel just as well, and I know most of you will find something cheaper.
Watch that you do not run the gouge into the bronze. I say it out loud in the video because I have done it.
What is the one rule that saves your wood
Carve across the grain, and always from the outside edge in toward the center. Go along the grain and the wood catches the edge and splits off the piece you needed.
Never take more than about 1/8 of an inch at a pass, roughly 3mm. Sometimes a quarter inch if the wood is behaving.
And put the mallet down for the bulk removal. I see a lot of guys hammering the waste out, and it works, but the bevel is a wedge, and every hit builds stress inside the wood you cannot see. Take it out by hand with a slicing motion, and let the tool do the work, not you.
Sometimes the shape sends you straight into the grain. When that happens, come in at 45 degrees rather than straight on. Break the rule at an angle and the wood usually forgives you. Head on is how you lose a leaf.
How do you take the waste out without splitting the panel
Land the corner of the tool on one side and finish on the other side. That is a slicing motion, and it is why the tool goes through basswood instead of fighting it.
The next pass starts with your edge about halfway across the last one. Take the same thickness every time. Do not scoop, do not lift the handle at the end. I call that the spooning effect and it leaves a wavy floor you will pay for later.
Stop before you reach the far edge. If you drive the whole width with force you can find a micro crack and split the panel. Take about three quarters of the way, flip the piece, come at it from the other side, and the two passes meet in the middle with no drama.
Once the waste is gone, come down from above and square your wall. Ninety degrees, straight down, no undercutting yet. If you are unsure, slope it slightly outward. More can come off tomorrow, none of it goes back on.
The order I work in
Trace the outline and the main nut positions onto the flat board with carbon paper. Skip the small notches, they change anyway.
Draw the background line about 6mm in from the edge, around the whole panel.
Clamp the panel down solid, grain running away from you.
Hog out the waste with the number 9, working from the panel's edge inward, 1/8 inch at a pass.
Then square the wall to 90 degrees, staying about a sixteenth off your line.
Plane the glue faces, spread Titebond II, wiggle the blocks until they suck down, clamp overnight.
Redraw your lines on the new blocks and block out the big masses.
Work the husks, then the nuts inside them, then the leaves and the stem.
The mistake I made partway through
I left the two nuts too close together. The husk has to wrap around each nut on its own, and I did not leave the space for it. A beginner's error, and I made it on camera.
I say it out loud, because it happened.
I do not carve these projects twice and show you the clean take. When I set that up wrong, you watch me sit there and work out whether I can save it or whether I have to chop the whole thing off and glue on a fresh block. It looked awful for a while. I told the camera it looked awful.
I fixed it. Mostly. Opening the husk and curling it back on itself let me blend the whole area into the rest, and it may end up looking better than my drawing did. I am not promising that, because I do not know yet.
Fortunately I had left about an inch of extra material there. Leave the meat on. You can shave a shape down later, and there is no glue that puts wood back.
How does the husk get its shape
Five main motions on each husk, then each of those five subdivided into three. Inside every main motion I leave a convex in the center and hollow a concave on each side of it. That is how you build an acanthus leaf, and the husk of a hazelnut wants the same logic.
The more wave you put into it, the better it looks. Exaggerate. A timid husk is a cookie.
Where two husks meet, aim for a triangle. A triangle always reads better than a four sided shape, and that meeting point is the first thing your eye lands on when the piece is finished.
Get the pencil marks off as you go. Pencil makes carved wood look dirty, and dirty carving makes you judge your own work wrong.
What makes carving in the round harder than relief
You will be looking at the piece from the side far more than from above. From straight on it barely shows anything. Turn the panel sideways and it has to hold up as a full round.
Depth is the whole difficulty here, and it is the whole point of the project. A flat relief lets you cheat the depth. A full round does not.
Keep a copy of the pattern lying on the bench beside you, and never try to replicate it exactly. I drew that pattern years ago for a different class and I deviate from it constantly, because the wood tells me things the paper did not know.
What about carving into end grain
Most of the husk work happens in end grain, and that is the hardest carving in the project. Your tools have to be genuinely sharp, not sharp enough.
I barely put pressure on the tool in those areas. Slicing, slicing, and slicing again, tiny passes, coming at the same spot from two or three directions until it gives. I still catch the grain sometimes and lose a chip. You see it happen in the video and you hear me say so.
Chasing a perfect surface on the first pass is wasted work. The wood will oxidize a little, and you want something left to clean up at the end. Leave yourself that chance.
Do you need experience for this one
It is challenging, and it is more challenging for someone who has never carved. That does not mean you cannot pull it off.
Follow the rules and you can. Take small amounts and leave yourself extra material. Watch your center points.
The mess is normal. Halfway through, your bench is a pile of chips with something buried in it, and I say so on camera every time, because if you are three sessions in and your panel looks like a mess, I want you to know mine did too.
Tools and supplies I use in this project
Titebond II for the glue blocks. The III is a good glue outdoors, but it leaves a black line you will carve right into, and the Original is not what I reach for either.
Do not save on glue. Put plenty on, spread it with your finger, and wiggle the block until it sucks down. Squeeze out is fine, we carve it away anyway.
Clamp it overnight. Light pressure is enough. A lot of shops try to move on in half an hour and I understand why, but you are not running a production line here.
I also keep a little rubber blower on the bench now, the kind you find on Amazon, because I got tired of blowing chips off the carving with my own mouth all day.
Key takeaways
Carve across the grain, never along it, and start at the edge, working in.
Never take more than about 1/8 of an inch in one pass.
No mallet for bulk removal. The bevel is a wedge and it stresses the wood.
Leave extra material everywhere. Shapes shrink easily and never grow.
Turn the panel sideways to judge it, and keep looking.
Five motions per husk, each subdivided into three, convex in the middle of every motion.
Titebond II, not III, or you carve into a black glue line.
Sharp tools or nothing, because the husk work is end grain.
Grab a piece of basswood. Shall we carve?