CHIP CARVING

 WOOD CHIP CARVING

This is apparently the oldest technique for wood carving. It involves carving a pattern into the wood base which is very often flat stock piece to form a pattern or decoration. Because the depth is relatively shallow the removed pieces of wood look like chips hence the name. The type of projects that are chip carved are for decorative items like plaques, bowls, walking canes or walking sticks, boxes [round or square] and boards .

Because this technique is regarded as the most simple it is a good staring point for whittlers. Wood carvers begin with just a new wood blank, prepare this add a pattern or decoration, clamp this up and carve to form the chip cavities, The process is repetitive but requires a high level of skill and consistency.

 

Sourcing and Adding the Pattern

There are a wealth of patterns that can be sourced and use here. After accessing these you can enlarge these or reduce these to suite the area. For this there is a well known source for this available here

You can add the pattern either by using tracing paper to trace the pattern and then carbon paper you to transfer this onto the wood surface . Use of graph paper is  very useful so as to maintain symmetry and proportion.

Another way of pattern presentation is to print this on a sheet of paper  to the exact size area of the final piece and then glue this to the wooden surface

  

Clamping

The work needs to be fixed tightly onto a flat surface and this may be done either by a clamping arrangement setup, or onto say a table via first screwing the piece to a larger surface board then clamping this board down to the flat table surface.

                                                        

Carving 

The  wood carving technique of chip carving removal is basically two a dimensional operation and it involves just following the pattern outline with the carving tool. which is usually a V cut chisel or a curved gouging chisel of different depths or curvatures.

The skill is in guiding the chisel along the pattern lines at the exact depth needed to remove mainly pyramid shaped chips which are to predetermined depths.

And this is a great skill. Like following a trail. Its all about control and consistency. A good training point for future skill development ! 

                                                        

Finishing Wood Chip Carving

The final project can be left "au natural" or it an be finish decorated. This is by a combination of staining by wood stains or colored by use of colored dyes. It may then be sealed or oiled. Or it could be vanished in some way for a particular desired result. 

Two of the Original Patterns side by side showing one stained 

Sharpening your knife

Every whittler or wood carver needs to keep their wood working tools in tip top shape.
Hand sharpening of blades is not a high degree of difficulty and requires one to get a feel of the technique and have the right sharpening  materials
After a while it becomes second nature. You need some sharpening stones, grit sand papers a leather strop and some honing compound

 

                                                        

Sharpening a shaped knife edge means to bring this to a razor edge again. Here the tools and technique can be brought down to a very simple procedure. 

For the first step you need a flat surface such as a wooden block or even a table top and drag the edge of the blade at a roughly 12 degree angle with the long edge held at 90 degree to the direction of dragging along the wet 
surface of 400grit paper . This angle is called the secondary angle or bevel of the blade sideways profile.
The primary  angle is the included angle between the knifes surface as originally supplied by the manufacturer.
To sharpen and hone you will need to angle the knife again to this 12 degree angle and sharpen in this
position. This is the first stage and is primarily to remove any fin nicks or damage to the blade.
You then repeat this using a wet 600 grit paper. You can wash and re wet the paper from time to time.
To determine an eleven degree angle it is roughly equal to putting a coin under the spine edge of a one inch wide blade or you can cut a template from a piece of cardboard as reference. 
To hone you sharpened edge you will need to strop this . This is done by using a strip if leather hide or tight felt piece and adding honing compound to it.

Stones
There are a variety of stones of type and grit . There are wet stones and dry stones.

There are stones such as Arkansas and Japanese wet stones. There are also compound stones which are formulated from grit and resin into a block
To be effective theses stones work best with water, oil or dry .You will need to read purchasing directions as to what these are for and to follows best practice here from the instruction sheets.
These stones come in different shapes which you need to have for different sharpening requirements.
Here a good idea is to go to various hardware or hobbyist shops to get the feel as to what is in the marketplace .

  

Ceramic stones are very convenient as they operate dry and are easily cleaned up with detergent for next use
In addition these do not develop an irritating wearing groove causing the knife edge to be sharpened away from the specification you wanted it to originally be.

If wear on these stones becomes an issue then the stone can be "dressed" to regain their original  perfect condition.