The Old Carver’s Law says, “Leave no wood uncarved,” so it became a challenge to carve faces out of a hard maple bottle topper on English Leather bottles.  Using the knife  in front of the bottles  in the photograph which was made by Charles Simpson out of Personna floor scraper blades, a slicing cut was required with every cut in this very hard wood.  Besides the hardness of the wood, the challenge is also to carve a different looking face with each carving.  Such a challenge is a way to learn to carve faces as every face carved becomes another learning experience that fulfills the saying: “The more one carves the better one carves.” Read the rest of this entry »