whittlin' with your edc

[Mr. Chips]

You guys are on the right track.

Most important is that the knife is sharpened at a low angle - 10 degrees works for me, and that it be stropped to a razor sharp edge. I doesn't much matter what model of knife, though longish blades will be more difficult to do detail work with. Stockman and congress patterns are good. The Colt whittler patterns, and the Colt 4 blade railsplitters are good even with no modifications.

As you go along though, you will find that you wish that one of your blades was a little different in basic shape. Fix it. A single cut flat file, such as can be obtained from a chain saw dealer for reducing the height of the depth gauges on a saw chain, will work well for this, along with your stone and strop for finishing up. Doing this with an inexpensive, non collectible knife, will not be traumatic, and will result in a more useful whittlin' iron.

 

[StoneBeard]

Thanks guys I'll keep you updated then


My experience is that those brands are precisely the ones that would need more reprofiling because the grinds are a little on the thicker side, but with 120 grit sandpaper on a flat surface is a quick job and again convexed shoulders and 10-12° per side at the apex and they should glide through the wood


One more thing for all you taking your first steps, don't forget the geometrical forms of the faces to avoid flat looking characters.
If you look at the profile there is an angle of around 150° hairline-point of the nose-chin and around 90° cheek bones-point of the nose if you look down from the top of the head.
Last tip: the teeth are in an arc (dental curve) that means half the mouth should be seen from the side.
Regards

Thank you for all the tips. I will admit that being a brand new whittler it is really hard to picture the proper angles and keep things in perspective. It is really helpful to see all the projects here in various stages :thumbup:

 

[WGregge]

Hello everyone, this is my first time reading this thread. Y'all are some amazing whittlers! I've recently started attempting to whittle. Does anyone have any tips?


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[lutejones]

Hello everyone, this is my first time reading this thread. Y'all are some amazing whittlers! I've recently started attempting to whittle. Does anyone have any tips?


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First what it's been written on this thread about sharpening angles and blades
A really like Donald mertz's blog the woodbeecarver, it has a lot of great information.
Also in my signature you have a tutorial I've made if you want to check it out

"Your father's light saber, it is the weapon of the Jedi knight not as clumsy or random as a blaster a more elegant weapon for a more civilised age"

Finished with Danish oil.

 

[WhittlinAway]

Hello everyone, this is my first time reading this thread. Y'all are some amazing whittlers! I've recently started attempting to whittle. Does anyone have any tips?

Welcome. Whittling is a wonderful pastime.

In addition to what Mateo said, I'd add:

1. Be safe: always pay attention to where your fingers and body are with respect to the path the blade would take if the wood was suddenly out of the way. If the wood splits out, it actually will be suddenly out of the way. I highly recommend wearing a glove on your holding hand and a thumb guard or tape on your knife hand.
2. Use very sharp blades, sharpened at about 10 degrees per side. There's good advice on this topic earlier in this thread. I recommend having a couple of blades sharpened this way: one with a straight edge (e.g., coping, sheepsfoot, or Wharncliffe) and one with a curve (e.g. pen, small clip, or spey). Experiment with them to see which works best for you for different uses.
3. Start with basswood: it is readily available, relatively easy to carve, and holds detail well.
4. Learn and practice the basic cuts. I found these YouTube videos to be helpful: Wood Carving 4 Basic Cuts to master and Learning to use your woodcarving knife. Once you've got the hang of those, you should be able to tackle a variety of projects.
5. Start simply and build from there. For my first project I whittled Simple Simon the Penguin, which is fairly straightforward and gave me a lot of confidence to try other things. Note: the gentleman in the video uses the V tool on his Carvin' Jack to help define the wings, but you can do just fine with a knife.
6. Don't try to remove a lot of wood at once. You can always remove more on following strokes.
7. Be patient with yourself.
8. Enjoy yourself. Whittling is a lot of fun.

 

[WhittlinAway]

"Your father's light saber, it is the weapon of the Jedi knight not as clumsy or random as a blaster a more elegant weapon for a more civilised age"

Mateo, that is absolutely splendid. Well done! I've also really enjoyed watching the process of it taking shape.

 

[lutejones]

Mateo, that is absolutely splendid. Well done! I've also really enjoyed watching the process of it taking shape.

Thanks Greg, appreciated
The inspirational image:

 

[paulhilborn]

WONDERFUL and AMAZING Mateo!!!

 

[JSCHENK]

First what it's been written on this thread about sharpening angles and blades
A really like Donald mertz's blog the woodbeecarver, it has a lot of great information.
Also in my signature you have a tutorial I've made if you want to check it out

"Your father's light saber, it is the weapon of the Jedi knight not as clumsy or random as a blaster a more elegant weapon for a more civilised age"

Finished with Danish oil.

Very nice.

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[StoneBeard]

Amazing work Mateo :thumbup: I finally had some time to sit down and really read through and look closely at the steps in your tutorial. It was extremely informative and really helped highlight some of the major mistakes I've made so far. Thank you for posting it. As soon as I have some time I plan on following it step by step at a nice slow pace.

 

[lutejones]

Thanks guys!!
The Solingen pen knife is a great companion on these small characters, I can't highlight enough the importance of a thin blade grind, I tried to take a picture for reference but the cell camera is a little lacking for that kind of close up

The steel is a little soft, for the ebony sword y had to sharpen up 3 times and the corkscrew gets in the way and hurts my hand a little when applying force.
I think I'll try to find another whittling knife
Something like grinling whittler or 33 conductor could fit the bill.

 

[J D Wijbenga]

Very impressive piece of work Meteo! A lot of good information in tis thread.

 

[Hickory n steel]

I really need to start whittling more.

 

[neal70]

Use of a protractor is helpful when sharpening to these low angles. L consider as a right angle(90 degrees) mark at 80 degrees on either side and you have your inclusive; mark at 10 degrees from bottom and you have one side, drawn on a work surface you can use these for reference or make a small block to help with sharpening by hand 'til you get the feel for it. Change the numbers to whatever degree per side or inclusive that you're shooting for. Don't know if that helps but hopefully so.
Thanks, Neal

 

[Mr. Chips]

I provide my students with a little wooden wedge cut at a 10 degree angle. This sits on the stone as a reference during the honing process and on the strop too.

 

[lutejones]

How is it going guys?
I've decided to follow Mr. Chips' advice and modify the blade of my case 6318PU. I cut the top with the disc cutter of the Dremel and then refined it with the sanding drums
Before

After

Now it's great!
I also want to share a sequence of the ball in a cage

I decided to change the expression last minute to a more enigmatic smile

 

[WhittlinAway]

I've decided to follow Mr. Chips' advice and modify the blade of my case 6318PU.

Neat! It looks like a fine carver, indeed.

I like the addition of the head atop the cage. It definitely gives it your personal touch. I also like the last-minute expression change.

BTW, after you recommended it above, I checked out the Wood Bee Carver site. Wow! There is a ton of great stuff there. I've got many hours of study ahead of me. Thanks for recommending it.

 

[StoneBeard]

Finally got a little free time to work through some of Mateo's tutorial. It has been very helpful and there are many things which I can improve upon. I definitely painted myself in a corner with the proportions of the forehead and chin, I'll try and leave more room for both next time. The blades are definitely sharp but I'm guessing they have to be next level sharp to keep all the very small details clean. The #38 has been outstanding, I really hope more are produced in the future as it is an absolute pleasure to use.

 

[WhittlinAway]

The little guy is coming along nicely, StoneBeard! :thumbup:

It's great fun when recognizable features start to emerge from the block, isn't it?

 

[skyhorse]

Neat! It looks like a fine carver, indeed.

I like the addition of the head atop the cage. It definitely gives it your personal touch. I also like the last-minute expression change.

BTW, after you recommended it above, I checked out the Wood Bee Carver site. Wow! There is a ton of great stuff there. I've got many hours of study ahead of me. Thanks for recommending it.

Very cool site indeed. I saw the wooden thread spool carvings and asked my wife if she had some empty ones laying around ? Lol, she informed they quit making the wooden ones .