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- Strop often, sharpen less
- A good tool becomes an extension of your arm.
- Keep your tools well and they will keep you well
- Find cheap tools at estate sales
- Attend a carving show. You will be inspired
- Always bring wood into your shop at least two weeks before you plan to use it. It needs to acclimate to the humidity.
- Keep your tools well and they will keep you well
- Anybody will buy anything if you make them think they need it
- It is much easier to carve using two hands and hold down devices
- Sawdust in the air can, combined with a flame or spark, can cause an explosion.
- Use a sharp straight edge of broken glass to clean up a carving.
- There are no mistakes in woodcarving, only new design possibilities.
- Gouges can be used upside down.
- You can sharpen your tools with various grades of sandpaper.
- You can put wood into a microwave to dry it or to kill bugs in it
- Never carve when you are impaired or tired.
- Don’t carve after sanding, the grit will dull your tool
- A good tool is worth the price you pay for it.
- Carve away from yourself.
- Crumpled up brown paper bags can be used for fine sanding
- Bad tools don’t get used
- Crazy glue can be used to glue cuts closed.
- Boil a cypress knee and the warm bark will peel off
- A chisel is not a pry bar.
- The width of one eye is equal to the space between the eyes.
- No matter how much wood you have, you won’t have the right size for your next project
- Remove pencil marks with rubbing alcohol
- If you price a carving too low it won’t sell
- The most valuable lessons are learned from your worst mistakes.
- Wood dust can explode if there is an open flame nearby
- Use spar varnish on wood which will be displayed outside
- Do not use a mallet on palm tools
- Agree on the price for a carving before you start it
- Use a scraper to remove excess glue
- Standard drying time for fresh-cut wood is 1 year to 1” of thickness.
- The corners of the mouth line up with the centers of the eyes.
- A high swivel chair with a back and footrest is the perfect carving chair.
- There are cheap tools to be found at yard sales and estate sales
- After cutting away the skin of a golf ball, use the excess skin for a paint cup.
- Turn a problem area upside down and then try to carve it.
- Wood dust can cause cancer and other diseases
- Always plan to demonstrate at any show you attend. Those who demonstrate usually draw a crowd.
- Cover your workbench with inexpensive rubber mats. Relief carvings will not move.
- Smaller pieces of wood can be glued together to make larger pieces of wood.
- Most carvers have a variety of different woods stored away in their workshops and will pass a piece or two on to a new carver.
- A V-tool actual has 3 separate blades.
- Young children can carve soap but be careful, the chips are slippery.
- If you have wet acrylic paint on a palette, put it in the freezer between painting sessions
- You can make excellent woodcarvings with a single knife.
- You can never use too many pictures for references.
- A power saw can cut faster through flesh than wood.
- Never stand in a direct line with a table saw blade.
- Rubber bands can be used as clamps.
- Use a v-tool for outlining, not using stop cuts will save lots of time and you will not crush the wood fibers.
- Original carvings sell better than carbon copies.
- Wood carves easier when “wet” but most likely will crack while drying.
- .Thin cardboard can be used as a strop.
- Shave the hair on your arm to test the sharpness of a tool.
- Books are worth their weight in gold but a good carving video is better
- When picking something thing up, you will knock over another, maybe even 2 or three.
- The more costly a tool, the more likely it is to jump off your workbench.
- A mixture of 50% rubbing alcohol and 50% water sprayed on wood will make it easier to carve.
- Tools should be purchased as needed.
- Looking and acting like a professional will help make you one.
- Tools can sense when you’re afraid of them.
- The best way to learn is to do.
- Wood contracts and expands with humidity.
- Sell the right things at the right shows
- Grinling Gibbons glued layers onto his carvings.
- Let the customer be involved, update them on their carvings progress. Email them pictures in various states of completion.
- You can soak a thin board in water, cover it with a wet towel and use a household iron to remove any warping or cupping
- Word of mouth is the best selling tool.
- You can burnish wood by using a rounded piece of hard wood to press into your carving.
- Wood is dry when it has a 10% or less moisture level
- Cuts usually happen reaching for tools.
- Always get a deposit which will cover the costs of a commission carving.
- Clean sandpaper using hard rubber
- There is always more than one way to do something.
- Slowing down wood drying time will lessen checking.