An Ode to Handcarving
I love power tools, maybe even more than the average spirited man. But my relationship to those tools has started to change in the last 5 years.
When I first got into carving, I fell in love with the solemnity of hand carving. The quietness of a sharp edge zipping through the fibers of wood was hard to resist. The further I got into hand carving the more I loved it. The meditativeness of it was addictive and it kept me occupied for hours on end. Then, 3 or 4 years into carving I discovered the Dremel.
The Dremel allowed me to remove bulk material more quickly and effectively without careful reverence for the grain lines of the wood.
Using a rotary burr was a new feeling. It was a bit more like driving a moped down a rocky path in a rainstorm than pedaling a bicycle on a calm summers day. When I flipped the Dremel’s switch I felt like was going on a small adventure.
Soon, I was using the Dremel all the time. If I didn't feel like taking the time to undercut a leaf using a knife and V-tool, no problem, the Dremel was there!
If I didn't feel like shaping the wrinkles and bags under the face, the Dremel with a tiny diamond ball would take care of that.
Soon, I was becoming less and less comfortable with my hand tools. I relied heavily on rotary burrs of all kinds and sandpaper to help cover over the messy hand tool cuts.
Soon I discovered carving with electric chainsaws… and I was utterly smitten.
If rotary burrs were like driving mopeds down rocky paths, then running a chainsaw was like racing a super cross dirt bike off of a rocky ledge.
Chainsaw carving more exhilarating than anything I had tried before in the carving world.
But I noticed as I got deeper and deeper into power carving I was getting sick more often.
I was getting sick multiple times a year, with a constant sore throat and a cough that returned every year for a week in the winter like a bored ex- girlfriend.
I wore masks more often than before and tried to carve outside as often as I could, but I couldn’t shake the dust off of my feet—or my lungs.
In 2019 built I myself a small 12 x 16” workshop and vowed that I wouldn’t use a power tool inside of the space as long as I was able to. I wanted to dedicate myself to becoming a better hand carver for a while. I also wanted to avoid creating and creating a 12 x 16” dust pit and thought I would restore a sense of peace and quiet in my work life.
The result ever since has been a great growth curve in my hand carving abilities. I feel more comfortable with the turn of the chisel and use far less sandpaper than ever before. I notice something, the more I began to slow down and return to my original love of hand tools, my cuts became cleaner and so did my shop.
To this day I wouldn’t trade my chainsaws for anything. In fact I just picked up a new saw the other day. I love carving with power tools and I still intend on using those tools to make my life easier when necessary. But to me, nothing can compare to the crunch of a razor sharp tool zipping through the wood’s fibers on a cold winter morning.