My First Carving - A whistle

[CAL]

Ok, its not the greatest achievement in the world of carving but this is the first thing I have carved and the first thing I have used my mora for.

I followed the advice of several articles on this site but to be honest I didn't expect it to work because I'm not particularly practical. I selected a piece of windfall from my local wood and discovered it was badly cracked but carried on as I wanted to get the techniques right more than make the final product. Much to my amazement this actually works very well. It will be first of many as I want to develop some kind of carving skill before I try anything else.

It started like this:

And ended like this:

And this big crack doesn't seem to affect it:

I do have one admission / question about this. I used an electric drill to make the bore. Is there some kind of hand tool I could use to drill a hole through dry wood. Something small for me to be able to use whilst I'm out and about, I suppose resembling a T bar to attach drill bits to.

Any comments are welcome. As I said, its not great but I really enjoyed doing it.

 

[joejoe]

yes there is a small chuck with a sliding rod on top.trouble is i cannot remeber where i put it or where i got it from. .think you could use a adapted tap wrench

 

[Chips]

I do have one admission / question about this. I used an electric drill to make the bore. Is there some kind of hand tool I could use to drill a hole through dry wood. Something small for me to be able to use whilst I'm out and about, I suppose resembling a T bar to attach drill bits to.

Yes, I can't remember what it's called (it's a drill bit with a square end), but I use them for drilling into birch trees. You drill a small hole in a piece of wood with your knife or just the bit. You then turn the drill bit around and force the square end of the bit into the hole. You then use the stick as a handle to turn the bit, hard to explain without pictures, but it works in dead or green wood.

 

[Shewie]

How about making one out of Elder ? You could then burn out the pith with a hot wire and wouldn`t need to drill it.

Never tried it myself though

 

[British Red]

CAL,

There are a number of the types of drill that you refer to - try looking at auger bits. However an easier answer might be for you to tru using a piece of elder wood. It has a soft pithy core that is easily tapped out with a piece of wire or straight stick. Makes a beautiful tube very easily. I make tree tap tubes from elder with just a sak - works beautifully well. I imagine it would make a neat whistle if you blocked an end up

Red

Rats - too slow - wait one whilst I find some pictures!

 

[Schwert]

Gimlet is the tool you want maybe.

These come with wooden tee handles too.

Most whistles of this sort that I have seen had the core wood knocked loose from the sap wood by gentle pounding rather than being drilled out.

 

[British Red]

This is elder

This is a tree tap I made using that rod - just pushed the pith out

Can't see a whistle would be wildly different?

Red

 

[CAL]

My intention was to find some Elder or Willow to start with but I couldn't find either (probably means I walked passed loads of Elder), but I do need to get a lot better at recognising trees in the wild.

I've looked at Gimlets and Augers and they both look like the way forward for what I'm after.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Steve27752]

I think that you`v done really well, I wouldn`t know where to start.

 

[CAL]

I think that you`v done really well, I wouldn`t know where to start.

Thanks - I followed a couple of the guides off this site, they were really helpful and I probably had a dose of beginners look.

Just need more practise now to improve my carving.

 

[Forest fella]

I just made a Wooden Whistle,I followed the steps out of a Whittling book I have,It works,But it sounds like Thomas the Tank Engine is this normal for wooden Whistles?