[Woodcarver] Holding spoons for carving

[Linehan718 at aol.com]

Hi,  I also prefer not to use any sort of hold down device when  carving 
small stuff like spoons, although I would definitely like to see Ivan's  method.  
What I will do is to lay the carving on a table or similar with a  rubber mat 
covering the surface. For the carving class I teach, I do  suggest newbies 
also make use of a bench hook, or carver's sled topped with the  rubber matt. The 
mat provides traction, yet it is extremely simple to  reposition anytime I 
feel the need. The back of the bowl is left squared  until it is nearing 
completion to prevent side to side wobble.  A lot of a  spoon carving is done with me 
simply holding the carving in my left hand while  carving w/ my right.
 
As for winding up with your hand or body parts being in the path of your  
carving, It will take you a few years of carving until you train yourself to  
routinely carve away from yourself, after awhile it becomes second nature.   
Ironically, the more I carve, the more I do carve towards myself now and then  and 
have learned many different techniques for leveraging and bracing my carving  
hand/arm to prevent slippage.  This is an intermediate skill and not  
advisable for beginners.  I do stress that a beginner also use a glove  until they 
lose the fear of scars and blood. I now rarely use a glove and I  find my most 
frequent reasons are because the wood is rough to the skin of my  hands or when 
carving a premium exotic wood as to keep my oils off of it, or to  help keep 
a very white wood, white.  As with most experienced carvers, I  find the most 
dangerous part of any carving is taking out and putting away  tools.  Perhaps 
the solution would be to get me a shop apprentice who could  deal with the 
dangerous setting up and cleanup.  Then again, that means I  would have to 
entrust the care of my tools to someone else and honestly I don't  see that 
happening anytime soon. LOL
 
 
Maura Carving in NYC
_www.carvinginnyc.com_ (http://www.carvinginnyc.com/) 






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