Best blade characteristics for carving hardwood?

[mww]

What should I (a beginner) look for in a blade to handcarve hardwood?
-Thanks!
-Mark

 

[bladeprince]

1) A beginning carver should start with a soft wood. Bass wood is usually the best to start out with. It is easy to carve and doesn't split as easily as most other soft woods.
2) There are wood carving knife "kits" that provide a nice handle that will accept a number or razor sharp blades of different shapes. I used one when I used to carve and they are great. When a blade gets dull, just through it away and put another one in. No need to use time sharpening. And the different shapes allow for great detail. They can be found a most hobby stores.
3) I have a friend (haven't see him for years) that started carving with just a couple differnet sizes of 3-blade "Old Timer" pocket knives. The different blade sizes and shapes and the 2 different sized knives gave him all he needed to produce some awesome pieces. He now lives in Santa Fe, NM and carves pieces that sell for thousands of dollars. I assume he uses more than just his Old Timers to carve these. I have one of his first pieces (an old bearded man's face in a piece of "non-finished" wood). To contradict my recommendation in point 1, it was made from high altitude Engleman spruce that is as hard a steel (I live in Colorado).
4) Carving is like most other skills in life. It's more the quality of skill than the quality of the tools. I also recommend buying a book or two. I did that and also took a few classes from a local carver. What he had us carve first were actually bars of Ivory soap.

Good luck

 

[Jeff Clark]

In general you want shorter blades with a variety of points. A sheepsfoot is a particularly handy design. I suggest a stockman style slip-joint pocket knife with 1095 alloy blades. These blades are hard and sharp enough to allow a little picking and prying with the blade tip without bending or chipping the blades. Look at the Camillus model 63 for example.
http://www.1sks.com/store/camillus-carbon-series-stockman.html

 

[PB Wilson]

Not to nitpick, but "hardwoods" means deciduous trees and "softwoods" means coniferous trees. Technically, balsa is a hardwood and Douglas Fir is a softwood although working with each one would lead you to believe otherwise.

Like bladeprince mentioned, basswood makes for an excellent carving wood. Soft enough to work easily and it keeps crisp details. Poplar is another easiy-to-carve wood, although it often has a greenish look to it.

By the way, great example, Jeff. Look at a woodworking catalog for examples of dedicated carving knives that wouldn't be and EDC.

 

[mete]

The greenish color to poplar will turn to brown on exposure to light !! Many woods change from light ,but poplar is the most dramatic I know of. A fine grained fairly soft hardwood is what you need ,depending on where you are poplar [actually tuip or tulip poplar not true poplar] basswood, soft maple .Blade shape is important, sheepsfoot or wharnecliff are very usefull .You might try www.ragweedforge.com for knives.

 

[mycroftt]

Warren makes pretty good, reasonably priced, carving and whittling sets. I recommend starting with a basic kit that allows you to swap the blades and gouges so you can become familiar with your blades and tools and how you want to use them. I'll give you some friendly advice too - you will find out that having a single handle will become a source of frustration as you will be constantly swapping blades, so don't be afraid to buy an extra handle or two. Eventually you will end up buying fixed blades.

Basswood is great to learn on. It has no real grain character, though, so it is best used for carvings that rely on detail or ones that will be painted.

 

[Jeff Clark]

If you want to get something at a walk-in store you could look at Woodcraft.

 

[STR]

Flex Cut makes some good tools for good prices for wood carving. Their little folder the carvin' jack is a pretty good knife for starters and it comes complete with everything you need to get started. It even has some starter instructions for both sharpening the knife and carving and it includes a maintainance block with leather and polish paste and all the right curves on the block for each blade to be polished and maintained on. http://www.woodcarvers.com/kn078.htm

A.G. Russell sells these carving jacks too but I could not find it on his site. He also has a very nice complete kit of knives from Japan that are some of my favorites. I use those a lot and it was just over 100 bucks for all those knives.
http://www.russellsformen.com/03rch03items/hir-9pcset.html

I'd start slow. I know some excellent carvers that carve with cheap knives. I've seen one gentleman do some wonderful little caracatures with nothing more that a Swiss army knife. Once you get comfortable with the techniques and the softer woods like Balsa then I'd move to something harder. I'd wait until you have had plenty of experience before tackling something like Teak or Walnut though.

STR

 

[Bobwhite]

Carbon Steel. There are great stainless steels and they work just as well or better than carbon in many ways, but woodcarving is not one of them. Look at all of the high end woodcarving tools. Two Cherries, Henry Taylor et al. They are all carbon steel. That is not an accident. Carbon works better in wood than stainless. It has to do with the grain structure of the steel. The extra stuff put in there to make it stainless changes the grain structure. Get Tangerman's "Whittling and Woodcarving" book. It is the best book on the subject. Have fun. I started carving about 8 years ago and it is a great hobby.

 

[KeithAM]

I agree that you should look for a small jack knife with carbon steel blades to start off. Current Case knives designated CV are fine (some of the yellow handle and amber bone models come in CV steel). For example, I use yellow handle Case medium stockman in CV. Old U.S. -made Schrade Old Timers in carbon work well. I've got a Schrade middleman jack that is fantastic for carving. I've also had good experience carving with Queen knives with D2 blades, and Boker knives with 1095 steel blades. I've got "Whittler" pattern knives from both of these companies and they work quite well.

I've also been happy using a couple of carbon steel Mora fixed blades. One has a 2" blade of laminated 1095 steel, and the other is a pretty standard size Mora. Carbon steel Moras tend to have harder blades, which is an advantage.

You're also going to need to learn how to sharpen and strop. I get the best results carving with a thin, sharp, and polished edge. You know its sharpened right when it cuts easily and the place you've cut is smooth as glass. Knivesplus sells a really nice stropping block that's ready to go.

I also agree you should start off carving friendlier woods. Go to a hobby or craft store and get some pieces of Basswood.

Good luck and have fun!

 

[Daniel Koster]

hard carbon steel with a stropped convex edge


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