217 articles in the archive · page 18 of 19
November 29, 2022
What should I carve as a beginner?
The honest answer is three knife cuts on a scrap of basswood, not an object. Here is the order I put in front of every beginner, with the tools, the wood and the first two projects.
November 16, 2022
Will wood carving lessons online teach how to carve wood, honestly
A camera set six inches from the blade shows a rotation nobody can see from four feet back. What it cannot do is put a hand on your wrist when you press too hard. Here is the honest split, and the five habits that close the gap.
November 15, 2022
The basics of wood carving, and the order they actually bite
Beginners do not fail because the design was hard. They fail in four places: the grain tore, the board slid, the tool was blunt, or the spare hand sat in front of the edge. Here is the short list, in the order it bites.
November 14, 2022
What is the best wood for carving, and the four I keep in the shop
Basswood at 410 lbf, and it is not close for a beginner. Here are the real Janka numbers for butternut, walnut and white oak, how to read a board at the yard, and the one board type I ask nobody to bring to class.
November 9, 2022
What wood carving tools should a beginner use?
Wood carving tools for beginners are one knife, one gouge, and something to sharpen them on. What I buy, what I skip, and why one sharp tool beats a case of twelve.
November 8, 2022
How do I learn to carve wood, and the order that actually works
There is no shortcut, but there is an order, and the order matters more than talent. One knife for a month, sharpening in week two, drawing in month three, and one shape repeated until your hands stop thinking about it.
Everything above is free and stays free. The courses are where I put your hands on the gouge and watch what they do.
See what is inside →
November 7, 2022
Is wood carving hard to learn, and which two parts are the hard ones
Only two parts of this craft are genuinely hard, and neither is your hands. Sharpening, because you cannot see it. Drawing, because repetition does not fix it. Everything else is just slow.
July 20, 2021
Woodcarving class in person at Marc Adams School of Woodworking
Five days at a bench in Johnson County farmland, carving a four layer panel in the Grinling Gibbons style out of limewood. Here is what the week is really like, what to bring, and how a Gibbons panel gets finished before Friday.
December 18, 2020
How to carve a lion head onlay like a master carver
My first paid lion head went onto a bar panel in Indiana when I was in my twenties, and I did it in the wrong order. Here is the order I use now on real commissions, from the museum research through the clay model to the seven carving stages.
December 8, 2020
Carving walnut, is it good wood for the job?
I once worked a house built entirely from purple walnut, and carved a furniture panel out of what was left over. Here is how the wood really behaves under a gouge, what bevel it wants, where it snaps, and what a board should cost you.
December 7, 2020
What is the best woodcarving tool set, and the four that do the work
Half my students arrive with a 30 piece box and carve with four of them. Here are the four gouge numbers that do the work, the three makers whose steel holds an edge, and how to buy them one at a time.
November 26, 2020
Is cedar a good wood for carving?
Four unrelated trees get sold as cedar, and they behave nothing alike under a gouge. Here are the real hardness numbers, why the grain destroys small detail, and what this wood is genuinely good for.