[Woodcarver] Cherry wood chip carving

[Victor Hamburger]

Steve Lankerd Sr wrote:

> I just sold a small chip carved "Basswood" box to a tourist today.  Another
> nice lady
> wanted the same box but in "Cherry"....  I told her I would try but didn't
> know how
> Cherry would cut as I never tried chip carving on anything other than
> Basswood.

Steve,

I just finished a spoon in cherry, and I gotta tell ya it was one hard piece of
wood!  Full size chisels cut it well, but for hand carving, I found it very hard
on the hands and knives. It seemed to want to splinter a bit if I caught it the
wrong way, so maybe the trick is to cut out "most" of the triangle without ever
touching the outside lines first, then go back and finish the triangles to the
pattern edge, taking just a sliver of wood as the final cut. 

As always, experiment first, come at the grain from all directions to get a feel
for how difficult it may be.  You may decide it isn't worth the effort or set
the price so high, your customer is not interested. You certainly won't want to
charge the same price for the cherry box as a basswood box!

	Vic H