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The right tools for the job
The main hand tools used in wood carving are gouges, knives and rifflers.
Also, some electric tools are useful for speeding up the "roughing out" stage, especially chainsaws, angle grinders and drills.
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Dont be tempted to buy budget price tools - cheap gouges and rifflers may be okay for working on plaster, but wood is much more
demanding. You need the very best tools.
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Gouges
A gouge is basically a chisel with a curved cutting edge. There are three variables :-
Shaft - Straight, Curved, Spoon, Backbent
width - the width of the cutting edge
Sweep - the curve on the cutting edge, from almost
flat to U shaped (no.s 3-9)
No-one could own all the possible permutations, so start with an all-purpose selection
eg. Straight ¾" no.4, Straight 1½" no.5, and a Curved 3/8" no.8.
Curved gouges are great for scooping out hollows, and straight gouges are best for use with a mallet. Also, there are small
palm-held gouges known as Blockcutters which are good for working in confined spaces.
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Knives
My favourite carving knife is the "Sloyd" design, with a 2" blade. The curved blade is long and pointed enough to
get into tight corners, and the shape of the handle lets you make a real fist round it so you put a lot of power into the cuts.
Some chic Japanese knives look similar to the Sloyd, but not as chunky. One for the ladies perhaps.
Beware.... Tool suppliers often put "Chip Carving knives" in with other carving tools. These have flat blades and are only
suitable for chip carving (engraving flat surfaces).
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Rifflers and Rasps
A riffler is a small curved file with various shapes at each end, designed for smoothing out small curved places. The most useful shapes are
the Ratstail and
Ski shapes.
Rasps are similar but much bigger, for quick basic shaping of flat or convex surfaces.
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Power tools
You can save a lot of time by attacking your log with a chainsaw. This is a noisy, oil splattered and potentialy violent assualt, but
with a bit of practice you can do your early "roughing out" in hours rather than days.
Petrol chainsaws are more powerful than electric ones but the 2-stroke exhaust fumes make them unsuitable for indoor use.
Don't be blinded by technical specs; to use a chainsaw as a carving tool you have to be able to manoeuvre it, so weight and balance
override any other consideration. Go to a DIY store, pick one up then flick it around like Zorro. Now, imagine that plugged in...
An angle grinder is useful for scooping out if you fit an Arbortech wood cutter blade. Make sure you get a grinder that's
light enough to hold in one hand. These can be even more violent than the chainsaw. The instructions say keep both hands on your tool. They're not kidding.
The Dremel 300 variable speed rotary tool is incredibly versatile and is small enough to hold like a pen. It lets you set a speed to control how much
or how little wood your diamond cutter removes from the smallest recesses.
Most people already have an electric drill in their DIY box. Just get a selection of sanding discs and you're off.
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