Wood carving - types, tools and photos of drawings for beginners

Knives for wood carving are a must-have accessory in the arsenal of a craftsman who makes decorative objects from natural wood.

Such tools can have different types and shapes, which directly affects the specific processing of individual parts. The most famous cutter, which is very popular among our craftsmen, is the Bogorodsk knife.

Tools for work

Truly high demands are placed on specialized carver tools. The skill of the performer plays an important role. But only with correctly selected and carefully sharpened tools will a master be able to demonstrate his skills in full force.

And if a professional easily and at first glance determines the quality of devices for work, then a beginner is invariably lost and can make a mistake.

First of all, you should purchase:

• quality knives;
• chisels (several pieces);
• needle files;
• hacksaws cutting metal;
• clamping device;
• sandpaper of different grain sizes;
• drill and several types of drills;
• wooden bars.

Knives

It is best to buy knives in a specialized store of goods for creativity and hand-made goods. They must be made from high quality steel. If funds are limited, you can temporarily buy simpler knives, but sharpen them well.

Experts speak positively about tools from the Tatyana, Narex and Kogatana brands.

Chisels

At first, instead of chisels, you can use a sharpened screwdriver and file.

When purchasing chisels, pay attention to the following types:

• Flat - a chisel in the shape of an elongated rod with a cutting edge at the end; it is needed during the initial processing of wood.
• Semicircular is one of the most popular types; it can be of varying degrees of roundness: medium, round or sloping.
• V-shaped - necessary when making geometric threads.

Machine

Carving on a machine has enormous potential, simplifying this work and turning it into pleasure. Modern models are not cheap at all, but professionals characterize them from the best side.

The machines can simplify many labor-intensive operations familiar to carvers:

• surface treatment at different angles;
• drilling recesses, grooves and grooves;
• milling;
• the actual carving.

There are huge differences in the sizes of machine models and in the technology of their operation:

• manual;
• milling and engraving;
• laser;
• CNC machines.

To simplify many operations of artistic carving, professionals advise purchasing a CNC machine. But if a novice craftsman just wants to try himself and see if this hobby is suitable for him, a manual machine is quite enough.

Correct sharpening

Now, to get started, we just need to sharpen our knife.

The sharpening instructions are as follows:

• Place the blade on an abrasive block with coarse grain (pre-wet it with water) at an angle from 15 to 240. Using movements away from us, we shape the cutting edge until the sharpness can be felt under the finger.
• We switch to a medium-abrasive stone and repeat the operations, leaving a ground metal chamfer (burr) on the cutting edge.

Procedure for sharpening

• On a small (diamond) block, generously moistened with water, we finally remove the burr, forming a blade.
• We perform editing either on a leather belt or on a special block. For straightening we use GOI paste or a similar material, which allows us to get a perfectly sharp knife with mirror-like surfaces of the cutting parts.

These operations must be repeated regularly to maintain the sharpness of the knife, since only with the help of a perfectly sharpened tool can clean and high-quality wood carving be performed.

Editing on the belt

Wood carving for beginners

In order to master the skill of turning objects from ordinary wood into works of art over time, you need to gradually go through lessons, moving from simple to complex.

To learn how to create decorative wooden elements, you need to know the technology of work and possess the necessary tools, without neglecting safety precautions.

Masters advise beginners, especially children, to first master the basics of contour carving. For it you will need:

• wooden canvas or object for decoration;
• set of chisels;
• blunt knife;
• pencils;
• sketch (drawing);
• sandpaper.

First, using a sample, you need to check how to work with each of the chisels, see what it is needed for, and practice.

Then the sketch from the paper needs to be transferred to the workpiece.

Only after studying the basic principles of working with the tool can you proceed to testing the products.

The most common are sketches with images of flora and fauna, and landscape sketches.

After applying the pattern, the wood must be sanded and varnished.

Criterias of choice

Today, purchasing a tool is quite simple. Many stores provide a wide selection. But how can you avoid running into Chinese disposable products? This is a more complicated question.

It’s best to start by studying specialized forums and listening to the opinions of professionals. And it will be even better if you can find a real master and chat with him “live”.

But this is rare, so when purchasing a set or tool separately, do not hesitate to ask what grade of steel the product is and who the manufacturer is. Take a block of wood with you to the store and try on the spot how the tool will fit in your hand and what its cut will be like.

Price categories vary, but it is clear that a set of 10 items costing 300-400 rubles will not be normal. This means that saving is not worth it here.

Yes, the tool can be quite expensive, but again, a few items are enough for a novice master. And the rest can be purchased as your skill improves.

Mistakes and how to avoid them

It takes a lot of time to master carving. And it goes not only to learning how to work with a tool, but also to coping with the consequences of failures and mistakes that are made due to inexperience.

Professionals advise paying attention to these “little things” that can ruin the final result:

• Only well-dried wood should be used.
• You should not hastily delve into the surface of the workpiece; all movements should be made smoothly and with minimal pressure on the tool.
• It is necessary to take into account the specifics of different types of wood, having studied it additionally, with different types of wood and you need to work differently.
• You can’t start working without a sketch; a beginner should give up improvising.
• You can’t grab onto everything at once and try to complete complex tasks; you need to gradually move from the simplest tasks to more complex ones.

Types of thread

There are many techniques for processing wood, with the help of which craftsmen create real works of art from it.

As such, a strict classification has not yet been created, but conditionally all techniques can be divided into several types.

Flat socket carving: a flat wooden surface acts as a background. The pattern is formed using notches of various shapes.

Flat grooved threads are:

• Geometric has a pattern in the form of a bizarre combination of various geometric shapes.
• Contour forms a pattern in the form of a rigidly drawn outline, as if pressed into the surface.

Flat-relief carving highlights a convex pattern on a background deepened with the help of a tool.

Flat relief carving can be:

• Oval - the pattern on it is located in the shape of an oval, often filling the entire space of the canvas with small recesses.
• With a selected background, a large ornament appears against the background of the space scraped out by the tool.

Relief carving: three-dimensional paintings, practically devoid of a flat background.

Relief carving can be:

• The bas-relief has protruding figures of medium height (about half of their volume).
• High relief - the background is deeply recessed, the figures are very voluminous and protrude greatly.
• “Tatyanka” - a convex pattern fills the entire space of the product, the elements merge, turning into each other (usually the theme is botanical).

The slotted thread can have the appearance of flat-relief or relief. The pattern is made by completely removing wood fragments and leaving through voids between the elements of the pattern.

The slotted thread is:

• Openwork: has protruding parts combined with cut holes, widely used for decorating furniture sets in the Baroque and Rococo styles.
• Overlay: made up of figures cut through and with protruding elements, processed only on the front side.

Sculptural carving - the depicted objects are separated from the background and represent a full-fledged sculpture.

House carving is the creation of elements used to decorate wooden buildings.

Universal chisel

Just a few years ago, work with wood was carried out using hand tools, but today there are devices, for example, an electric chisel, that make it possible to significantly facilitate the work of the master, as well as increase the speed of work while maintaining high quality.

An electric chisel is called universal because it allows you to carry out a wide range of work. High-power chisel models can cope with the removal of old parquet boards or rough processing of a large piece of wood, removing knots and other hard inclusions. It is impossible to cope with such work using only hand tools.

This tool is considered universal because it has many attachments of different shapes and sizes. For example, small semicircular and straight 4 mm bits will help you make patterned carvings or engrave the master’s initials, while more massive tools, up to 5 cm wide, are designed for removing wide chips and roughing.

Slotted thread

One of the most visually impressive is the slotted carving. It is great for interior and exterior decoration of houses. Decorating a piece of furniture, window frames or decorative cornices with it means attracting everyone’s attention and admiration to them. For many, this type of carving is associated specifically with Russian culture and applied art.

It is generally accepted that cutting through patterns on a large scale and developing this art began mainly with the advent of thin and wide wooden panels on an industrial scale. After all, before this, such blanks had to be cut out by hand with great difficulty.

Before cutting through the pattern, you need to make a design on the surface. You can come up with it yourself, or you can use a ready-made diagram from the Internet.

To make a slot, the board is drilled in several places from the inside out with a special drill or chisel. A jigsaw file is inserted into the resulting hole, which is used to make a slot according to the drawn diagram.

If the pattern element is small, then special files with small teeth are used for the same purpose. The remaining elements can be further decorated with patterns for decorative purposes.

After completing the drawing, the product is processed with sandpaper and a file.

In order to protect and make it more decorative, the wood can be additionally varnished.

The slotting technique is the type of carving that beginners in this business are advised to start with. Of course, complex ornate patterns won’t work out at first, but this is a great way to practice and make something truly beautiful!

If a novice master wants to learn the craft of wood carving, he should be patient and learn all the nuances. But only with the help of constant training and making products of varying degrees of complexity can you achieve impressive success!

Tool for miniatures - “marigolds”, “claws”, “rivets” and the list goes on

Hello everyone! I decided to add my two cents to the topic. I would like to show you my tools, which I use to work with bone and not only; some work well on wood and non-ferrous metals. These are claws, so to speak, I started making them a very long time ago. I just couldn’t get to the tricky place and decided to make an animal tool similar to a claw, it turned out to be very convenient to work with, then I saw others making similar homemade products. I make them mostly from spring steel. An ordinary one, which is thinner from auto junk, which is thicker from an old sofa, I annealed until red for an hour in a barbecue at the dacha, now, if necessary, I straighten the required rod, cut it, shape it, sharpen it, harden it from red-scarlet to water, and then to wheat I release the colors with an industrial hairdryer. I sharpen the finish on the mirror, first with seven diamond paste (seven is green) and also finish it on the mirror with white Dialux polishing paste. Why on the mirror, because it holds the edge very well when sharpening small edges. I sharpen with my hands without tools, just a mirror with paste on a hard surface and so that the elbow of my working hand is also on the same hard surface.

These claws were sharpened and sharpened from the dental scrapers of the periodontist to remove tartar. Steel is softer but holds an edge for quite a long time.

I also use many stichels. For its intended purpose...that is, it’s easy to draw a straight line or an arc with them, with some you can work something like a claw. I make them from P18 steel, old needle files, small bearing races, and springs. Quenching and tempering is still the same except for P18, it is alloyed and has a very complex tempering-hardening process, P18 is simply sanded with water to the desired shape and the final finish is also applied to the mirror.

I also use knives, sometimes I need to trim and cut through something. The shapes are like this, the steel is the same.

For deep contrasting lines I use these scrapers, scribers in my opinion, they also make it possible to crawl somewhere. The file is very convenient for filing something very thin, for example, detailing the edge of a very small feather. I made halves out of a SPUTNIK blade, placed a cylinder with a fine notch on a piece of wood and rolled the cutting edge back and forth with the blade. The result is a very thin file that cuts absolutely everything. Be careful with your fingers at first, in one pass you can saw through the nail along with your caruncle... I went through this task with joy.

The technique is based on three principles. The first, traditional, like a chisel, basically it’s just a chisel. Second, scraping or how to SCRAP correctly, these are all practically tools. Well, the third one is a lever with a persistent finger, this is everything except knives, at least I haven’t worked with knives like that yet, although sometimes I use a boot to trim the edge of something thin. In general, whatever is more convenient and the more convenient, that’s it. This is approximately how it happened, don’t scold me too much, I photographed and drew this method with a lever and a stop.

Example:

Sketch:

Scheme:

Regarding the sharpening angles, it’s very difficult to say, the fact is that, in theory, I first sharpen all the edges to 45 degrees, but then it becomes clear that I need to adjust, if it digs in, I increase it, if it starts to crunch and groan, I decrease it, so what’s the difference? In principle, there is no one panacea for everything. Moreover, the bone, I’m talking about the shank, is often more rigid and fragile on the surface, and towards the middle it becomes softer and more flexible... so you scour here and there... looking for the fifth corner.

That's how it is in general. If I wrote something that is not clear or you have questions, write, I’ll tell you everything I know. Thank you!

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