The Sensuous Gadgeteer
(Page 7 of 11)
September/October 1973
By the Mother Earth News editors
When you work a piece of wood the most important feature you will deal with is the grain. If you cooperate with the grain it is your best friend. If you fight the grain it is your worst enemy. A newly cut piece of wood will look like this:
As you cut the wood you will cooperate with the wood grain if you press the fibers together with the knife. You will fight the grain if you pry the fibers apart with the knife, as this will rip up large sections of wood beyond your control.
When working with a knife, what you want most of all is control. That is why a short knife is better than a long one—you can control it. Never do things with the knife that are likely to send it out of control. For example don't rest the blade on the surface of a block of wood and then push the knife in the direction of its axis, without bracing your thumb against the side of the block and rationing the motion with your thumb. If uncontrolled pressure is applied the block will tip or the knife will slip, and the knife will go out of control. If you are holding the wood with your other hand the knife will slice your index finger to the bone. Never cut toward yourself.
Much effective carving can be accomplished by shaving off material with the knife. Slice after slice, thin slices. Set a convenient part of the blade into the place to be cut, and rotate the blade against a convenient pivot point somewhere else on the cutting edge. In a hollow part of the work the pivot point can be the place where the back of the knife meets the work. You can control the knife by squeezing it along with thumb pressure on the back.
You now know enough about carving wood to do some pretty competent cutting. The knowledge needs some practice to apply consistently. Wood will tolerate being cut perpendicular to the grain. Wood can be cut, chiseled, planed and filed with the grain or across the grain, and it can be sanded with the grain.
It is one thing to know how to carve wood and quite another to know how to carve the objects you want out of wood or any other material. This is a question of knowledge, not of strength, skill or experience. INSTRUCTIONS: In order to carve the object you want out of any block of material, place the block of material in front of you and envision the object you want floating inside of it. When you can clearly see the object you want, pick up your tools and cut away everything else. This method works and it is the only one that does. Don't allow any other method to even cross your mind.
The more rigidly geometrical your object is, the easier it will be to carve.
When carving an object, work it around and around on all sides, keeping the whole piece of work at the same level of completion everywhere, never letting any part get ahead of the others. If one part gets too far ahead of the others, the piece will never get back together again.
RELATED CONTENT
When you have finished a wood carving and you want to smooth it, sand it first with medium, then with fine, then with finest sandpaper. If the wood is very hard it might take sanding with crocus cloth. Pine can be painted, stained, varnished or shellacked. Fine woods can be varnished, and the finest woods should be oiled or waxed with linseed oil, human face oil, Butcher's wax or lemon oil.
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