I’ve been doing a lot of carving lately, mostly relatively simple whittlings from small tree branches. It’s a fun type of carving, especially because I can complete an entire project in an hour or three. That’s a huge departure from the bowls, which take several hours to carve, twice as long to sand, and the same amount of time again to fill the cracks with crushed stone, complete sanding, and finish. My simple little whittlings also let me think of other things while I’m working, something that’s difficult to do with the bowls or other types of carvings.

Not that there’s no challenge involved. Every piece of wood is different and poses unique challenges. Working around knots requires careful attention, and carving areas where multiple limbs come together and the grain is going every which way can be difficult. That’s one of the things I’ve been thinking about: describing how to identify and best carve wood that has interesting grain patterns. Straight grain is easy to carve and favored for big woodworking projects (chairs, tables, other furniture), but a small carving that takes advantage of interesting wood features can really stand out.

I don’t know that any of the carvings shown here really stand out, but every one of them was a learning experience for me. How useful they are beyond that isn’t really a concern.

Above is a stir stick (for mixing drinks) carved from a small oak twig. It’s about 8 inches long. The stone at the top is crushed malachite. There’s a similar spot of crushed stone on the other side. I think oak is a perfect wood for this kind of carving. It’s strong and it shines up beautifully, and it’s easier to carve than most of the other woods in the yard.

At left is an example of what I’ve come to call “stabby things.” Stabby things are essentially just sharpened sticks. Well, maybe not “just”: there is some design thought put into them. This one came about because somebody in my wood carving class at Sherwood Forest Summer Camp pulled this piece of cedar (Virginia Red Juniper) from the pile and started trying to carve it. I took it away and gave him something that a beginner actually had a chance of making something from.

This cedar is generally very soft and easy to cut. As long as the grain is straight and you’re cutting with the grain. The wood is so soft that when you try to cut against the grain, your knife gets under some fibers and the wood starts to tear. And if the grain curves even the slightest bit, it’s distressingly easy to get into a situation where you’re tearing rather than cutting. I took this piece from my student because it contains two large knots and some really twisty grain between them. The handle is about as simple as I could make it, heck, the whole piece is about as simple as I could make it because carving that block of wood was a real challenge.

That cedar, by the way, was a 1″x6″ block of wood that I cut from a much larger piece. That much larger piece was used as part of a window frame in the Great Hall of the castle at Sherwood Forest Faire. My friend was hired to re-do the windows there and he asked if I wanted the wood. My students at Summer Camp got to carve a small piece of the castle.

Anyway, stabby thing, five or six inches long.

This is a piece of Arizona ash, six or eight inches long, from a tree that died in the yard a couple of years ago. I had carved a lot of it with power (bowls with the angle grinder, and some utensils with the Foredom), but hadn’t put a knife to it until I started this piece last year. The wood is pleasant to carve: generally straight-grained and not terribly sensitive to carving against the grain except around knots. Unlike most of the other carvings here, which came to me originally as branches, I got this from a 3/4 inch board I’d had milled from the ash in the yard. I’m fresh out of ash branches since most of the ash trees in the neighborhood didn’t survive two years of ice storms. I thought I’d try burning a simple design into the handle. I’m pretty sure that the design would look great if rendered by a competent pyrographer. I need to spend some quality time with the wood burner. I haven’t decided if I like the way it turned out.

In April or May of last year I bought a new carving knife. It’s called a Sloyd knife, a Swedish design that is used mostly for roughing out larger carvings. It has a long (a little over 3 inches), curved blade. I’d never used one and this piece of elm seemed like the perfect place to try it out.

The result is a large-ish dagger with a 10-inch blade, carved from an elm branch 1-1/2 or 2 inches in diameter. The design was inspired by the Rondel dagger, but this piece isn’t intended to be an accurate reproduction. It’s hard to see in this picture, but there’s a pretty good curve about where the blade meets the handle. That curve was in the branch, and I just carried it through the completed carving.

Carving this piece took a long time. I worked on it every night for a couple of weeks, put it down to work on something else for a while, picked it back up, lather, rinse, repeat. I pretty much finished carving it last summer, and then set it aside to carve the oak dagger (see below). I was going to do a wood burned design on the handle. The ash dagger above was my practice piece. I decided that I need more practice.

After I finished carving the elm dagger above, I thought I’d do another one in oak. I think this piece of oak is from a Post Oak tree in the back yard. This wasn’t a limb, but a piece that I split off a very large chunk of the trunk. Again, I did all the carving with my new Sloyd knife, and then set it aside. That was last summer. Back in June of this year I started carving again and two of the first things I finished were these two daggers. I scraped them smooth (as smooth as I could), then sanded them to 1200 grit. The finish is two coats of boiled linseed oil.

You probably noticed that the daggers don’t have well-defined edges, nor are they particularly pointed. There are two reasons for that, both of which have one overriding reason: these daggers are meant to be carried as props at Sherwood Forest Faire. Rather than a steel blade that must be peace tied (i.e. cannot be removed from its scabbard), I can carry this wooden dagger. The end is blunted to prevent a sharp point that could hurt somebody. And there’s no sharp edge for the same reason.

I could have created these daggers with sharp points and sharp edges. Oak and elm can easily form an edge that’s sharp enough to cut, and a lethally sharp point. Especially if you strengthen the edge and the point with the liberal application of super glue. But thin wooden edges, even those strengthened with super glue, are brittle and prone to break. I doubt they’d survive a single full day being used as props at Faire.

Yes, it’s a finger wand. Kids who’ve seen or read Harry Potter really like wands. I’ve been asked many times to carve one. I haven’t done it because kids usually want a wand that, well, it looks artificial. Manufactured. Perfectly straight with a perfect taper, etc. Where’s the magic in that? I started peeling the bark on this oak twig, wondering what I was going to carve from it. I’d been doing almost exclusively stabby things for a while, and wanted something different. One thing led to another and now I have a fingernail and first knuckle on a very long and crooked finger. The whole thing is about 20 inches long.

The handle is actually sanded bark. I carved away the outer layer of bark using my carving knife, then sanded it with 60 grit sandpaper to get a smooth surface. I sanded the handle up to 220 grit, and the rest to 400 grit.

I wonder if I can find somebody who wants a finger wand.

I think all of the pieces above are sanded to 400 grit, with the exception of the finger wand and the two large daggers. I sanded the dagger handles to 400 grit, but took the blades to 1200 grit. The difference really shows on the oak dagger. That blade shines.

Finish on all of them is two coats of boiled linseed oil. The linseed oil actually penetrates the wood and cures, making the surface quite a bit harder than natural wood, and also protecting the wood from moisture and bugs. I’ve found that two coats, maybe three, is enough. After that the wood can’t absorb any more. I like the linseed oil because it provides protection without adding a glossy look like a polyurethane finish would add. If I want to make it glossy, all I have to do is let the linseed oil cure for four or five days, and then spray it with poly.

This is just a small sample of what I’ve been carving. At least a dozen more are in the shop, in various stages of completion. They’re simple carvings, but I’m having fun with them and now and then find something exceptionally beautiful inside the wood I’m carving.