A CHIP HERE - A CHIP THERE

Mickey Hudspeth's Woodworking/Carving

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WHAT IS CHIP CARVING?

For those that are not familiar with chip carving, it is a form of relief carving where wood is removed from the surface. In normal relief carving, the carver removes shavings using a wide selection of wood carving knives and gouges. Depending on the hardness of the wood and the carving design, the carver may use mallets or even power carvers. In chip carving you carve by hand(no mallets) and use a single small extremely sharp knife to remove precise chips - no shavings. Since we chip carve by hand we are limited to relatively soft wood such as basswood or butternut. The patterns for chip carving are usually geometric in design - such as rosettes, however you can do beautiful freehand and lettering. Lettering is particular suited to chip carving as can be seen in some of the photographs in the GALLERY 2.

THE CHIP CARVING KNIFE

The chip carving knife is a small hand held knife with a specially shaped blade that must be extremely sharp. A sharp knife is a mandatory requirement in chip carving. If it is not sharp, the removal of the chips will be difficult and the incision will not be clean. A sharp knife polishes the incision so that once the chip is removed that incision is finished. You will need proper sharpening stones for the knife. I use a 1000 grit water stone to get the initial shape then a 6000 grit ceramic honing stone to put the final edge on the knife. I will also use a leather strop every 10 minutes while carving. The proper taper of the blade when sharpening is to raise the back edge of the blade about 10 degrees (about thickness of a dime). Maintain an even pressure on the blade and make smooth long strokes. Do not round off the cutting edge of the blade.

THE CUTS

Examine a chip carving and you will note that most of the incisions are either two cuts or three cuts. The two cut chips are shaped like little canoe's in their most simple form and maybe an "S" shape in one of the more complex forms. In any case, the chip is removed using only 2 cuts. The 3 cut chips are used to make trianglier shaped chips. Again, 3 cuts and the chip falls out. You will run across some four cut chips in lettering. If the chips do not fall out with the appropriate number of cuts- you are doing something wrong! This is where practice comes into play. First work on the canoes cutting with the grain, then across the grain and then at diagonals to the grain. You will find that the grain direction will make a difference in the effort required and a different cut strategy may be required based on grain direction. By cut strategy, I mean the order of cuts -which one first. In trianglier chips, I try to make the first cut with the grain. Why? - if your last cut is with the grain, there is a good possibility that the chip will split off and the incision will not be clean. Again - this is where the practice comes in. After several hours of removing chips, you will learn to analyze the cut and make the right decision on cut order. The proper angle of the cut is approximately 65 degrees. This angle is from the surface of the wood up the the plane of the knife handle. For stability when making cuts, keep the thumb planted firmly on the surface of the wood safely away from the cutting edge.

THE WOOD

Since chip carving is done by hand, the wood must be soft. This does limit us to a few choices and based on my experiences, the following list is provided:

BASSWOOD

Personal best choice. You should select Basswood that has the least graining pattern and to be as clear of imperfections as possible. The color ranges from near white to tan. I find that the tan colored wood tends to be stringy and makes carving a little more difficult. Select the white colored wood if possible.

BUTTERNUT

Next best choice. Not quite as soft as Basswood but still ok for carving. Somewhat darker in color.

POPULAR

Reasonably soft but wood tends to be stringy. Sometimes can have strange colors. I have tried Popular to test the carving but have not completed a project in popular.

WHITE NORTHERN PINE

Reasonably soft but the growth rings can cause problems. Again, I have done some carving on pine just to see how it felt but have never completed a project in pine.

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