Chocolate powered woodworking
“Out of the mouths of babes…”
Leave it to the youngest of our grandchildren (let’ call him little “Georgie”), to explain to everyone else about last year’s Christmas ornaments: “Grandpa hasn’t learned to carve eyes yet.”
Yep! Got me!
So, when I decided to mimic the “Whittle Dwarfs” carved by Don Stephenson and featured on Don Mertz’s “WoodBeeCarver” site, I added eyes. It’s a cute little gnome, just under 2 inches tall. … and it has eyes!
One of our grandchildren is working his way through the first year of Cub Scouts. All forms of scouting, at least in the U.S., have a set progression of ranks, or levels. First year Cub Scouts usually see two ranks: the Bobcat and the Tiger Cub. Part of the Cub Scout uniform is a neckerchief, which is held in place not by a tied knot, but by a slide. One of the only areas of a scout’s uniform where there is latitude for personal expression is the neckerchief slide. Here’s where Grandpa steps in and does some woodcarving.
My woodcarving interest so far, has been caricature carving, and not so much animal carvings. However, these scouting symbols are not much different than caricatures. They are simplified representations of the various animals: bobcat, tiger cub, wolf and bear.
Carving these has been a multifaceted learning experience. Part of the learning was getting an actual neckerchief and determining what size hole works well (answer 3/4″). Next was making patterns from a combination of the official emblems and from lots of reference photos scavenged from the internet.
One of the discussion forums I frequent often has requests from people saying “Where can I find a pattern for such and such?” My answer to those sorts of questions (which I don’t actually post) is “Doh! find some pictures and make your own patterns. It’s easy!” Then again, “Engineering Graphics” was one of the best college courses I took some 40+ years ago … and had the most expensive textbook I’ve ever bought. I thoroughly enjoyed that course and use many aspects of it to this day.
One need know two major things to successfully carve these slides. A couple of bobcats made it onto the burn pile before I learned the first thing.
1. A carnivore’s eyes are located midway between the tip of the nose and the base of the ears. Get this right and the rest of the head is not too difficult. As a minor point, youngsters such as the tiger cub are generally softer and rounder than adults.
2. Coloring and distinctive markings are as important, maybe more, than actual shape. So, painting is “the cat’s meow.”
This grandson is pleased with the results. His slightly younger cousin will also be pleased to learn that Grandpa is learning how to carve eyes.
My first foray into carving was way back in early grade school. Dad taught me to carve a simple Scotty dog from a bar of Ivory soap with a pen knife. No V-tool was needed for that work.
By the way, this is a simple beginner carving project. The parts of the dog are blocky, the soap easy to carve, and even a simple blocky carving gives a sense of accomplishment. Be careful of breaking off the tail.
Somewhere in the middle of Boy Scout years, carving a wooden chain was intriguing for a while (“a while” means 5 or 6 inches of chain). No V-tool was needed for that work.
More recently, carving the scrolls on the stems for the Fiddlehead canoe brought carving back to the forefront. No V-tool was needed for that work either.
The small set of inexpensive Ramelson “Beginner” carving tools purchased for the Fiddlehead work included a V-tool, but it wasn’t needed for the project. Besides, it was cast lopsided with one side wall thicker than the other. Not long after taking up the most recent interest in carving, I decided to fix that V-tool. The first photo shows the result. With it unsuccessfully “fixed” … through many grindings, it is now reground to be a very short gouge with something like a #5 radius.
There’s a BETTER solution! Learn to sharpen a V-tool correctly. Chris Pye, a traditional woodcarver once published a collection of eBooks he called “Slipstones.” One of those was a 102 page book titled “Select and Sharpen Your V-Tool.” Holy pages Batman! 102 pages???! Yes, it’s a very comprehensive tome, spending a lot of time describing v-tools and offering advice on how to select the one(s) you might want.
The part of the book about sharpening clarifies the “secret.” In short, it advises one to think of a V-tool simply as two chisels joined at the keel. Sharpen each chisel independently, but to the same angle, and “voila!” you have a sharp V-tool. If that brief explanation isn’t enough, there are about 50 pages in the eBook to explain the details.
Chris recently upgraded his web site, and in the process the eBooks slid into that deep dark spot full of lost stuff from reworked web sites. Chris has also started a new “Woodcarving Workshops” web site offering excellent video instruction for a very wide range of woodcarving topics. There he offers professional instruction (for a reasonable fee) as series of very concise and expertly produced videos. Take a look.
I asked Chris about the missing eBooks. He answered that he’ll bring them back eventually, but for now suggested that I forward on to those who might want them any that I have. So, for a limited time, get your copy of Chris Pye’s “Select and Sharpen Your V-Tool” ebook.
