315 hours woodcarving without a plaster, is it a record?

[robin wood]

Over the last 2 weeks many of the best spooncarvers in the country have been to Edale to work with visiting Swedish carver Fritiof Runhall. It has been a wonderful inspirational experience for us all.
Here is Fritiof talking the finer points of design with Steve Tomlin and Barn the Spoon

Fritiof has a remarkably limited toolkit and shows that with skill and a few tools you can achieve pretty well anything.

Close attention while Fritiof signs his work with a delicate carving technique.

We were all encouraged to learn to use axe and knife left handed and right handed, this helps a lot when trying to achieve symmetry or balance in your carvings as you are not turning the blank over and carving blind.

Using spoons and bowls at lunchtime helps understand design

There were lots of gorgeous spoons made

But best of all in a total of 315 person hours carving we did not use a single plaster, is this a record?

More photos on my blog here

 

[Shewie]

Great stuff Robin

Not sure I trust myself left handed with an axe just yet though

 

[mrcairney]

Brilliant. I'm really getting into my carving at the moment, even if I do seem to stumble on my convex areas. No plasters needed, though I have developed some serious calluses.

 

[The Big Lebowski]

Managed several years, then had both thumbs last weekend...

Nice photo's

 

[robin wood]

Brilliant. I'm really getting into my carving at the moment, even if I do seem to stumble on my convex areas.

I tend to do convex by using axe or knife in a single plane and rotating the blank to get the convex.

Managed several years, then had both thumbs last weekend...
Nice photo's

Thanks, and just goes to show you can never be complacent, maybe I am tempting fate by the thread title and next course will be a bloodbath.

 

[Tjurved]

Nice photos. I remember one day a couple of years ago I had been carving all day without a plaster. Then I went into the kitchen and made me a cheese sandwich and cut myself quite deep with the cheese slicer!

 

[Mafro]

Super Robin, I always enjoy reading your posts and looking at what marvels you produce

 

[JohnC]

I'm intrested in tips about practicing left and right handed... is there any advice about this? or is it just swapping the blade over....?

 

[Harvestman]

I'm not sure I can do 315 minutes without cutting myself.

Come to think of it, I cut myself on the tin when feeding the cat last night.

315 seconds maybe...

 

[robin wood]

I'm intrested in tips about practicing left and right handed... is there any advice about this? or is it just swapping the blade over....?

I would first make sure that you are completely happy that you are working safely right handed and that you understand what makes it safe, where the cut will go if it goes through the wood more quickly that you expect. If you are happy with that it is simply a matter of mirroring the cut exactly, it will feel very very odd to begin with.

I'm not sure I can do 315 minutes without cutting myself.

Come to think of it, I cut myself on the tin when feeding the cat last night.

315 seconds maybe...

Those tins are dangerous things, but with knives there is no need to cut yourself, it's simply a matter of learning correct technique which tends to be faster as well as safer.

 

[Eric_Methven]

The fact that you all went that long without the need for plasters is testimony to excellent knife drills by all participants. Since I did the spoon carving course with you at Chopwell, I haven't cut myself once. That's down to your teaching techniques. Whether it is a record or not, who knows? What is there to measure it by?

Eric

 

[robin wood]

The fact that you all went that long without the need for plasters is testimony to excellent knife drills by all participants. Since I did the spoon carving course with you at Chopwell, I haven't cut myself once. That's down to your teaching techniques. Whether it is a record or not, who knows? What is there to measure it by?

Eric

Good to hear Eric, must be about 3 years without a cut? I do get frustrated when folk imply that cuts are inevitable.

 

[mrcairney]

I tend to do convex by using axe or knife in a single plane and rotating the blank to get the convex.

Don't suppose you're doing that in any of your videos are you? I am on the quest for knowledge!

 

[kodiakjoe]

inspirational stuff Robin, thanks for posting It's good to be reminded that we don't need a swathe of different shaped knives to produce a whole range of carving.

The left handed 'whole body' approach makes a lot of sense. I'm now doing this when sharpening my chainsaw chains after being shown how by a Dutch arborist which great results. Am really interested to try it with carving - but slowly at first!

 

[Gailainne]

Great stuff Robin

Not sure I trust myself left handed with an axe just yet though

I don't trust you any handed with an axe!