Your carving Tools

 

 

The Steel

 

 

The Rockwell C scale is a way of measuring metals hardness and its ability to indent into a softer surface. The higher the # the harder the steel. Soft steel will not hold an edge for very long.  Harder steel will tend to be brittle and will chip and perhaps crack. A good carving tool will have hardness between 56-62 with most top quality tools at approx 59

 

 

Sheffield (English) and soligen (German) steel is the best steel available today. There once were over 2400 carving tool profiles known.  Half have been lost to history.  Approx. 1200 profiles are still being manufactured today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carving Knife
     Probably the first tool any carver starts with is a knife. Its primary use is for whittling and chip carving. The blade is about 1 1/2" long, and has a handle designed to fit the hand. Like gouges, it should be made of high carbon steel that will hold an edge for a long time.

 

 

Carpenter's Chisels
     These chisels have a flat edge (#1 Sweep). They are not usually used for sculpture, because the edge of a flat chisel tends to dig into the wood, twisting and plunging the tool deeper on one side than the carver may have desired. They can give a crude, unschooled look that may be desirable on some types of sculpture

 

 

U-Gouges 

 

 

     Gouges are the work horses of carving. U-gouges are designated by the width of the cutting edge (in inches or millimeters), the sweep, or amount of curvature of the edge (an arbitrarily assigned number), and the shape of the shaft (straight, bent, spoon, and back bent).
     Gouges can be purchased:
  - in widths from 2mm (1/16") to 60 mm (2 3/8")
  - in sweeps from #2 (a barely perceptible curve) to #11 (a very deep, half round curve)
  - in straight, bent, spoon, and back-bent shapes

 

 

V-Gouges
     V-gouges are designated by the width between the top edge tips and the angle of the vee bottom edge.
     Gouges can be purchased:
  - in widths from 2mm to 30mm
  - in 60˚ (#12 sweep) and 90˚ (#13 sweep)

 

 

 

 

Bent and Spoon Gouges
     These specialty gouges are used to get into inaccessible spots on a carving that a straight gouge can't reach.
     Bent gouge: the entire length of the shaft is curved.
     Spoon gouge: the final 1 1/2" of the shaft is deeply bent in a spoon shape.
     Back bent gouges: a spoon gouge with the curve reversed so the cutting edge is convex instead of concave.
These specialized tools are seldom used, but when needed, are invaluable

 

 

 

 a-short bent

b-spoon

 

 Skewed Chisel
     A skewed chisel's cutting is angled back from the leading edge at a 45 degree angle.
     They come in straight, bent, and spoon shapes and in varying widths.
     These are specialized tools and are seldom, if ever, used

 

 

Palm Tools
     Most of the above tool shapes can be purchased as smaller palm tools. A chip-carving knife and an assortment of palm gouges are all that is needed for creating small carvings in basswood or other soft woods.

 

 

Mallet
     The traditional mallet for carving is cylindrically shaped and made from a heavy, dense hardwood.
     I prefer using a rubber mallet. While it doesn't have the driving power of a wood mallet, it is less noisy, easier on the chisel handles, and has some spring that brings the head back up for the next swing.

 

 

 

 

Basic Carving Strokes
Tool Patterns

 

 

As a beginning carver, the choice of carving tools available can be overwhelming. Which tools you really need to learn this craft and which tools you really will use can be a hard decision. There are several basic tool shapes that are standard to this hobby. The primary carving blade is the carving knife.

 

 

 KNIFE

 

 

The knife has a thin blade that will be about 1 3/4 inches to 3 inches long, and tapers to a point at the tip of the blade. The entire straight faced edge of the blade is sharpened to provide you with an ability to cut lines into the wood and to whittle away long slivers of excess material. Short blades are usually referred to as bench knifes where a longer style blade will be called a Sloyd knife. Carving knife styles are also marketed under the names of 'detail knives',  'whittling knifes', chip carving knives and 'straight knives'. Of all the tools that you will purchase, this one is the main stay of your kit and it is worth the investment for any beginner to begin with an excellent quality blade. There are many fine examples of detailed carving that are done using only the knife.

 

 

  GOUGES 

The second style of tool that you will be using is the gouge. Where the bench knife tapers to a point, the gouges end with a blunt cut. The full length of the blade is either rounded for c-curve gouges, tightly rounded for u-curved gouges also called veining tools or parting tools. The final edge of the blade is sharpened to slice out the wood. Gouges remove great quantities of wood at a time and so are used to do the rough cutting in carving.

 

 

 
"V" GOUGE OR "V" POINT CHISEL

 

 

This tool comes to a sharp "v" point at the tip creating a deeply scored line in the wood.  "V" gouges are available in a variety of angles from very tight "v"s to widely open "v"s. Use this one to carve along joint lines in the design and for detailing as the beard and hair in a North Wind pattern.

 

 

 
STRAIGHT CHISEL

 

 

Chisels also have only the final edge of the tool sharpened, however the end will be cut in a straight end or angled end. These flat blades are used for the stop cut in relief carving, for removing large areas, and for crisping corners. They are also excellent for scraping the final surface of your work to leave a clean smooth finish. Chisels cut at an angel are called "Skews"

 

 

There are many specialty carving tools that have been developed over the years. For undercuts and removing the background areas in tight corners you might want a dog-leg skew. There are also bent gouges, backbend gouges, spoonbit, and fishtails available for your use. As your craft is developed, like most carvers, you tool kit will increase with a variety or knife shapes. Tools also come in a variety of widths from the micro carvers that are used for very fine detail and miniature works to the large fish tail gouges and awls that remove great quantities of wood with one stroke.

 

 

Each tool creates it's own pattern of stroke in the wood. Use a scrap of softwood to practice and explore each of your new tools. Remember also that each individual blade style can create a variety of strokes depending on the depth of the cut and the angle of the blade entry into the wood. A c-curve gouge will make a beautiful tear dropped shape stroke that both tapers into the cut and then back to the surface of the wood. Yet if you hold it upright at a very slight angle and push into the carving you can make fish and dragon scales with the blades imprint.