CMT
‘Tis The Season
This is my second carving of the Christmas Santa’s. This fellow has a fancier beard. The picture to the right is the finished and painted carving. It looks like it is a part of the page. (It’s the one in the middle!) You can can see I made it a bit bigger than the pattern. The second picture is the same background and was made just after I finished the wood carving work. I wasn’t real happy with the beard lines in the Santa with Christmas Tree carving so for this one I connected up the high speed rotary carving tool I bought last year. It was perfect for carving the lines. A little more practice with my CMT hands and I can start to do finer lines. This looks pretty good though. These are not kits, I started with only the drawing you see in the picture. I band-saw a 3/4 inch slab of Basswood off a big block I bought, smooth it up and lay out (trace) the carving. I think it is a great way to get started in wood carving.
Cut That Out!
I ordered a basic wood carver tool set today. I have been doing some interesting wood carving (vaporizing) with a high speed air powered rotary hand piece. I enjoy the creativity of carving. I just remove everything that doesn’t look like what I want. Ha!
Actually there is a bit more to it than that but it is the main idea. I haven’t done serious knife and wood carving since Boy Scouts. I did get a merit badge in carving about 45 years ago. I have no real carving knives or tools (gouges) at this point in my life so I ordered a beginner’s set on the Internet from Little Shavers Woodcarving Supply in Seattle, Washington.
There are a lot of suppliers available, but this is the place where I found a reasonably complete set of beginners’ tools (and accessories) at a very reasonable price. Good information too. I figure I can always upgrade to more pricy tools if I get the bug and need better tools to do more. I like the fact that this fellow Rick is very youth oriented.
Some of the carving I want to do is not suitable using the high speed hand piece. The dust produced by the rotary tool is also not healthy. Cutting real chips on the other hand is much more user/producer friendly. They can still be a mess but they are not filling up my sinuses and maybe lungs with wood fibers.
Another benefit I want to test is to see if the carving will help or perhaps hinder the strength problems I have in my hands. My CMT damage is now in my hands and arms as well as my legs but not as bad. I hope working with my hands will keep the wires (nerves) connected.… Continue reading