Classic straight-handled, hardwood wooden spoons are a fantastic theme for the wood carver. But there is so much more than you can do with that handle as chip carving, oven rack hooks, and relief carving.
Click on the images for a full-sized free spoon carving pattern.
Let’s start this summer of fun with an in-depth look at chip carving with free chip carving patterns, step-by-step instructions, and lots of photos. Hours of fun, carving, and learning!
Let’s take an in-depth look at the chip carving technique by creating several chip carving practice boards, and working a classic needlepoint sampler layout, shown above, that you can use to carve multiple chip carved projects. The pattern and photo sampler for this Needlepoint Layout is available in both our Chip Carving Pattern Package and in the Chip Carving E-Project.
Here is the link list to our Chip Carving Seminar by Lora Irish.
Supplies needed for chip carving Creating basswood chip carving practice boards Wood preparations Knife sharpening Transferring a chip pattern to your board Knife angle Common problems Positive and negative space How to cut the different styles of chips Learn triangles, square, straight-wall, curve-edge, free form, and accent chips Using chip styles in your patterns Work a set of chip progressions How to turn a corner
Learn how to prepare your wood board, three methods to transfer your pattern, and how to set up a chip carving practice board.
Please stop by Art Designs Studio, (a.k.a. CarvingPatterns.com) Lora Irish’s wood carving, pyrography, and chip carving pattern website.
Chip Carving Basics E-Project, Everything from this Chip Carving Seminar and more! Learn how to create a wide variety of chip carving designs using different styles of easy-to-cut chip motifs, by Lora S. Irish. 37 page, PDF file format, easy to print e-project and the full cp015 Chip Carving Pattern package with 110 ready to print chip carving patterns.
We have spent the last week looking at the wood carving art of chip carving in this free, online seminar by Lora Irish, which includes free chip carving patterns. Today I thought we might take a few minutes and look at some of the common mistakes that can happen in your wood carving.
Let’s look at a few of the common problems and errors that can happen in chip carving. Please note that if you are working a practice board you may find that the basswood is not the high quality that you might find in a prepared basswood wood carving blank. Small chip outs are more common when working practice board quality basswood.
1. Ragged walls can be caused by poor quality wood or because of an improperly sharpened knife edge. A poorly sharpened knife, or an incorrect bevel to the knife edge are the primary causes for cutting problems in chip carving.
The craft basswood boards available at your local hardware store often show some ragged wall cuts. A dull knife tears through the wood instead of cutting the wood. When working on a high quality piece of basswood, check your knife edge as soon as you discover a ragged wall.
2. Each chip should have a sharp, clean point at the center of the chip well. Correct this problem by re-cutting along one side of the center point piece.
3. This chip’s wall was cut using several, staggered strokes. Re-cut the wall using one full stroke that covers the entire wall side.
4. In this sample the knife effect began the wall cut slightly away from the intersecting joint line between the two chips. You can re-cut one of the chip walls to thin the intersection.
5. Every chip carver discovers a very wobbly edge chip walls. I find this problem most often occurs when I am cutting through a spray adhesive paper pattern. Use the blade’s edge to shave just the curved area of the line, avoiding the two end points.
6. Chip outs happen and are caused by several reasons. If you are working on a heavy grained wood as sugar pine, the change in the grain pattern can cause a thin point to break free.
On soft carving woods as basswood the point can chip because the stroke is pulled into the point. The pulling action tears the point away from the plaque. Try cutting your finest points with a push stroke instead of a pull cut. With a push stroke you literally lay the edge of the blade along the line and push the blade down into the grain.
Over cutting one side of the point, reaching the blade point too deeply into the wood, can cause a point chip to break away when the second cut meets the first. Try scoring the point lines first by using a light pressure in the blade and cutting an extremely shallow cut.
Chip outs can be repaired by using wood glue and a tooth pick. Place a small drop of glue on the board at the break out spot. Place the broken chip back into position. Allow the glue to dry thoroughly, about one half hour then re-cut the chip.
7. If your knife feels as though it is cutting through grainy wood – a sandpaper feeling – check your knife’s edge for sharpness. It bares repeating that the biggest problem in chip carving is either too steep a blade bevel or an edge that has lost its hone.
Please stop by Art Designs Studio, Lora Irish’s wood carving, pyrography, and chip carving pattern website.
Chip Carving Basics E-Project, Everything from this Chip Carving Seminar and more! Learn how to create a wide variety of chip carving designs using different styles of easy-to-cut chip motifs, by Lora S. Irish. 37 page, PDF file format, easy to print e-project and the full cp015 Chip Carving Pattern package with 110 ready to print chip carving patterns.
For our final session in this in-depth, step by step seminar on Chip Carving, we will look at a classic carving layout for a needle-arts styled Sampler layout. This layout can easily be adapted to use any border, line, or motif chip carving pattern.
There are several ways to learn and practice your chip carving. The first is through the use of practice boards. We have discussed this idea several times during this seminar, but it is worthy of one more look. In the sample board to the right I have worked a series of progressions using the simple 3×2 grid diamond motif that has been shown throughout these pages.
The grid pattern was penciled directly to the basswood practice board using 1/4″ squares. Each 3×2 grid motif was marked using a darker pencil line. As I worked each row of the practice board I treated that basic 3×2 diamond differently in how many times I divided the diamond into triangles, the style of cut, in the positive and negative space, and in the addition of accents.
As you look at the photo sample you will see that the first two diamonds in each row show just the cuts used to create the diamond. The last two diamonds show the accent chips and cuts that can be used. This creates 9 variations of the 3×2 diamond and 9 possible borders.
Our Chip Carving Pattern Package contains four patterns which show 36 variations of just the 3×2 diamond motif that can be used to change, alter, and vary any of the larger pattern layouts using both triangle, and straight-wall cuts, as well as negative space.
Classic Needle-Arts Sampler Layout
The sample shown right is a finished carving from our Chip Carving Pattern package, available at Art Designs Studio. It is also available in our Chip Carving E-Project, a 37-page PDF file e-book and 110 chip carving chip variations and patterns.
Beginning in the 15th century needlework samplers became a way in which young women could show their skills with a needle and thread. Small patterns, motifs, and borders decorated the linen cloth as a record for future use. In essence, a needlework or needle-arts sample is similar to the practice boards we create for our wood burning, wood carving, and in this lesson our chip carving.
The layout pattern is very simple and perfect to practice and experiment with small chip carving patterns. The top rows will be small border patterns. The central area of the sample is used for larger, individual designs or rows of similar sized motifs. The bottom rows return to the border patterns. This places the largest visual units at the center of the layout and the small designs at the top and bottom areas finished work.
Sampler Layout Chip Carving Pattern
The Sampler Chip Carving Pattern, shown right, uses the needle-arts layout. Please click on the image for a full-sized, printable pattern.
The third row shows the first large motif area and uses both free-from long line work as well as large triangle chip cuts. The central rectangle area can be used for a name, date, special event, or for a small free-from pattern.
A thin, small border line of triangle chips with stab knife accents fills row four.
A 6×6 square motif is used in row five and separated with a small mirror-image 3×2 straight-wall chip cut.
Row six uses curve-edged chips along the bottom edge of the border pattern. It also makes use of negative space, captured between the 3×2 motifs as well as both cut oval and stab knife accents
The last row, number seven, combines a simple alternating square chips border with a triangle chips motif. It shows on the two sides of the triangle motif how easy it is to adjust the triangle chip sizes to fit into a specific space.
I hope that you have enjoyed this free, online Chip Carving Seminar. Please feel free to drop me an email note if you have any questions.