Starting Wood Carving ?

  Two of my grand children have watched me wood carve and show an especial interest,  My Grandson is interested in carving wood, and he and I have done a couple of projects together. My Grand daughter has show interest and aptitude for soap carving. 

  By the way, soap carving is a good way to get them started with low risk and low cost.

  Now it is time to set them up with their own set of tools to use at home.

  I selected these tools to cover most eventualities.

  There are:  two gouges, one shallow, one flat.

                    two straight chisels, one very narrow and one about 1/4  inch wide.

                    a V tool, and a very sharp knife with a curved blade.

  The current plan is some flat carved Christmas ornaments as a starting point. This variety of tools will give the kids good tools to start their carving careers.  It can be very frustrating to a beginner if the carving tools dull quickly, it makes doing your project more difficult and as a beginner you can't tell it the cause of the problem

  Notice it is a mixed bag of makes and types.  All of these tools are good quality, will get sharp and stay sharp. With this set I included a strop and :

  These grippy gloves and I've glued leather finger guards on, thumb and fore finger left hand, thumb, right hand. 

  I have had my grand kids in my shop when ever they are here and ALWAYS emphasized safety.  Now they don't even think to begin something in the shop without the proper safety gear in place. 

  I am hoping to see some results in the next couple of weekends.

cheers ianw

Soap Dish

 I have been working away on some small projects that were in limbo. I've flocked an other box and spent sometime sharpening tools.  Otherwise it is sort of summer vacation.  When you are retired how do you tell vacation from everyday life? I don't know either.

  The thing I actually made was a carved soap dish out of cedar. 

  The basic shape was cut on the band saw and to establish the depth to which the dish was to be hollowed I used my drill press.  After establishing where I wanted to hollow to be deepest I set the depth stop on my drill press and then drilled a 3/8 hole.  Once the hole was drilled I then used various carving gouges to gently taper down to the hole depth.

  To work on this project I used my carving jig/support.

  The sides are solidly screwed to the base.  The screw heads are well counter sunk to keep from chipping a blade if I slip. On the underside is a heavy lip that I can push firmly against my work bench. That way I can exert serious torque when necessary. 

  The various cut outs help hold various shapes better.

  If you wanted to make something like this soap dish and did not have carving chisels you could draw the shape on your board but not cut it out.  By leaving the board uncut you would have places upon which to clamp your piece down while using various power sanding machines.  A shallow indentation could be mostly shaped with a grinder and a random orbital sander.  Once the hollow is shaped, cut your pattern out on the band saw or with a jig saw.  I used knives and files to trim and shape the edges but a sander would do the job as well.  I opted for the mostly hand tool approach because I wasn't in a hurry and wanted quiet time.

  This soap dish turned out Okay except I experimented with the finish.  Instead of something traditional like tung oil, or just leaving it raw to soak up over time I tried something I found in a craft store.  My wife puts jig saw puzzles together and I thought I would try the premixed sealant/epoxy that puzzlers use to glue a complete puzzle together.  It didn't really work, too much of it soaked into the wood for a nice result.  It I have to seal the project before putting the sealer on, it is not a success. I appear to be a glutton for  punishment when it comes to the search for a finishing short cut. 

  Anyway, the weather is what we have been waiting for, more or less so get out and enjoy it.

cheers, ianw