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Here's a great little excercise: carving our square, starting block into a cylinder.
And it is an exercise. We are actually doing more work than we actually need to, but there are so many lessons here that it's worth the time.
| 24 August 2019 05:13
Thank you.... It's a very worthwhile exercise for me, and quite enjoyable. Getting the same amount removed along the cylinder and on all sides... ie getting it round, is a challenge.
I will do it a few times.
| 23 August 2019 04:20
Mark - Do remember that this is an exercise! It's worth doing a few times: you'll get your eye in and proceed much quicker a second or third time.
And good on you for having a go!
| 22 August 2019 19:14
This is not easy.
| 21 April 2019 08:58
Jof - I get asked this a lot and I feel I disappoint in my answer. The fact is, it really varies: from tool to tool, carving to carving and wood to wood. I seem to have developed an acute sense for when the tool has lost something of its edge, its sharpness, almost like it's losing its mojo...
I give students a 20:20 rule of thumb to help them get into the idea of stropping: 20 minutes carving 20 stops on the leather, but it's only that. If you even THINK the tool needs stropping, it needs stropping...
| 20 April 2019 19:18
Amazing what a difference a #9 makes; my 6mm #9 ploughs through it versus my 12mm #6!
Question: in a piece like this, how many times do you find yourself stropping the tool - say, the #3 towards the end of the video. Obviously "when it's needed" but I'm curious how often that works out to be for you.
| 21 September 2013 13:27
Hhhhmmm... good thoughts, never looked at it that way... dictated shapes..... thanks for the insight good sir.
| 21 September 2013 11:43
Steven - You are absolutely right: there is no moral high ground in laboriously chopping away wood with a gouge when you can do the same work quickly with a saw, say. (Think of how the original tree got to this block of wood to start with!) I regularly cut corners with a coping saw. Here, though the project has the subtext of being an exercise, both in technique and visualisation. Elsewhere on the site I also go the 'long way round'. However, I will make this proviso: power tools, particularly the lathe and I'd include the Arbortech family, while being faster than gouges will always try to dictate your shapes, and that has to be guarded against. So lathe-turned apple will look too 'perfect' and symmetrical. It's a balance...
| 19 September 2013 23:48
Watching you getting rid of the waste wood with a gouge, it would seem like using a table-saw to cut off the corners or even using a lathe to turn the block round. Saves lots of time and time is money.... if these tools are available to the carver ....seems like a whiz-bang good idea. (Unless this makes the carving less "pure".....?) Hope you will give your opinion as it is valuable to me.
| 21 July 2013 08:21
Thanks, Chris! What a great lesson for anyone working in the round!
