This little fella, called A Good Man, received his true colors the first week of June.  He had been carved in April using a carving knife made by Allen Goodman.  He stands three inches tall having been carved from a one inch square block by three inches.  He was carved exclusively with the Goodman knife in the “Whittle-Carving” style.

Several poses of A Good Man gives a good, all around view of this Whittle-Carving.  The last photograph shows the Allen Goodman knife used to carve this little fella.  Allen makes a fine carving knife that has a up-sweep cutting edge and the back of the edge has a slight “sway back” curve.  The design of this blade shape along with the springy flexibility of the blade allows for good slicing cuts and coming out of a cut without the back edge slowing down the cut.  A Good Man was carved as a test of the versatility of Allen’s knife and it certainly passed the test.  An Allen Goodman knife is a Good one. Read the rest of this entry »

Three wood carvers who have been my mentors in carving ever since I first heard and read about them, even before I met them, are Ivan Denton, Peter Engler and Harold Enlow.  Combined, these three have perhaps influenced more people to discover the wonderful world of wood carving than any other combination of woodcarvers. Read the rest of this entry »

A very inexpensive, in fact a free tool to aid in the carving process is the very common business card. Every carver has one that bears the carver’s name, address and phone number or has another carver’s business card. In fact any business card will do as a measuring and straight edge tool. The standard business card measures two inches wide by three and a half inches long. These known measurement quantities can give approximate measurements when laid against a carving project. Let’s say for example the carver wants to measure a piece of wood and does not have a tape rule but does have a business card. Laying the card against the project and marking off in the increments of the known measurements of the business card, the carver can come to an approximate measurement. Three widths of the card would equal six inches; two lengths would make seven inches; and one width and one length would make five and a half inches; and so forth and so forth. Read the rest of this entry »

“Woodcarving is more the journey than the destination,” is a saying I often use in reference to the actual carving process as being the joy of carving.  The finished carving is nice to view on display, give as a gift, deliver as the completion of a commission or enter in competition.  Outside of that, the real joy is doing another carving, the journey of carving. 

Having said all that, yet there is value in making a “Sentimental Journey” by looking and studying one’s earlier carvings, kind of like a “benchmark” to see where we have been on the carving journey.  This post will show some photographs of such “benchmark” carvings. Read the rest of this entry »

As a boy growing up on the farm in the early 1950’s a pocket knife was my constant companion  being used to whittle toys and other boyhood interests.  When in the early 1970’s I met wood carver David Monhollen http://www.monhollen.com/ who showed me the A-B-C’s and the 1-2-3-‘s of how to get started in carving, the pocket knife continued to be my carving tool of first choice.  Read the rest of this entry »

Scott King, publisher of the CutleryNewsJournal, recently interviewed me on the subject of WHITTLING.  The interview may be viewed by visiting http://cutlerynewsjournal.com/2009/05/02/meet-a-master-whittler/ .  I am very honored to be able to share my ideas about Whittling with those interested in collecting antique pocket knives.

Ten or twelve years ago our local carving group asked the organizer of a knife show that was meeting in our area if we could come for one day and demonstrate whittling and carving.  He was thrilled that we would want to do so and even asked if we would organize and conduct a “whittling contest” for the show and he would donate two pocket knives to the winners.  Our carving group decided to have a letter opener as the subject for the whittling contest since letter openers have a blade.  We carved up some examples of letter openers, wrote guidelines for how to whittle a letter opener along with photographs and supplied basswood sticks for the contest.  Read the rest of this entry »

The FOUR SEA CAPTAINS are the final results of the previous post entitled “Battle of the Knives.”  The sea captains have received the painting process called “Painting Softly,” as described in earlier postings. Read the rest of this entry »