How to Make the Perfect Cut
As a response to several queries that I have had in the past relating to tool handling techniques, I decided to focus this article on just these issues. During the following I shall not be tackling the subject of tool sharpening (for this is whole subject in itself) but shall say here at the start, that sharp tools are singularly the most important part of attempting to cut wood with hand tools. From here on I shall assume that having razor sharp tools is a given.
There are many possible (and perfectly appropriate) ways of achieving the same task when carving wood, but I shall be tackling the techniques that I personally use, for each of the major hand tool groups. Beginning with a flat tool, followed by tools with a shallow sweep (degree of curvature) somewhere between gouge numbers 1 and 4, a deeper gouge (sweeps 5 to 10+) and then v-tools and veiners. For the sake of clarity, over-sized gouges were used in the video, but the same techniques would work for smaller tools as well.
Please refer to the accompanying text download when viewing the video
Pause the video frequently to allow time to read and absorb the information.
