Introduction to Chip Carving

Chip Carving Projects might remind of old-fashioned baroque-style decorated furniture or features of some national folk art. Such fascinating works seem to come from a highly-skilled master’s pen (or, to put it more precisely, from best chip carving knife), whose abundant experience by no means can be achieved.

In fact, everyone can feel the power of working wonders, as chip carving is actually extremely easy to master, having in hands best wood carving tools for beginners. The most commonly used wood carving wood for amateurs and professional carvers in the United States are pine, butternut, basswood or mahogany. The best wood carving tools can also be used for whittling, cabinetry or general workbench functions.

Defining Chip Carving

Chip carving is one of the greatest ways for beginners to get engaged in the art of wood handing. Basically, this style implies removing small pieces of the material (chips), creating amazing ornamental patterns in a single piece using a chip carving knife.

Chip carvings have its structure, two levels: a flat wooden surface itself and another surface beneath, let’s call it the extreme point of your carving, where the cuts meet.

This wood carving style can be traced back to ancient years when pieces of wood were first grasped creatively. Through years many cultures inherited this tradition and transformed into their perception of the world.

Nowadays everyone has an opportunity to gain such an experience by improving carving skills. There are techniques with different shapes style carving or following some basic geometric figures and shapes, such as simple lines and curves, triangles, circles, and ovals. The great thing about learning simple rules is that they can be broken sooner so that one could get inexhaustible opportunities to incarnate personal ideas and visions in the project, making it interesting and unique.

Let’s consider two main techniques one can master to start the way of a chip-carver.

 

Ways to Create a Masterpiece with the Best Chip Carving Knife

Fine Triangle Chip Carving. The most commonly used traditional pattern. Being simple to understand and easy to perform, this technique is very popular among beginner carvers. Essentially it means carving various triangles. The awesome thing about this type of chip carving is that it’s quite simple to carve those shapes automatically, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the final result will be boring. Changing and combining different sorts of triangles can let a carver create a wonderful pattern even with repeatedly projected outlines.

Free-form Chip Carving. Do basic shapes still seem to be too boring? So a typical basic scheme can always be broken and transformed the work to essentially extraordinary. While those triangles can keep the and images attached to some defined movements, free-form chip carving gives a great variety of lines, curves, circles, which could easily implement everything that keeps itself within the triangle-shaped bounds.

Anyway, those techniques can be combined to supply an artist with all the necessary stuff to embody his ideas.

Best Wood Carving Tools

Each wonder comes from a different magic wand. Chip carved wooden magic also requires specialized tools. They don’t demand too much money and any starting skills, which makes chip carving quite affordable. But here you have an immense number of different wood carving tools for sale, so you need to choose a special one. So where could you buy a great chip carving knife?

Best Chip Carving Knife Features

Among the top-rated wood carving tools, the BeaverCraft Chip Carving knife C2 is a finely-crafted product from some talented Ukrainian makers at BeaverCraft. The sharp edge is attached to the oiled wood handle, which polished surface gleams and keeps its gloss and shine even after long-term usage. Its size is also the greatest chops for chip and relief carving and woodcutting.

The high carbon steel blade is razor-sharp out of the box, so the tool isn’t expected to be provided with extra pre-usage care. Sooner it will be easy to recover the sharpness with a barber’s stone or a strop. Such an edge is suitable for cutting hardwoods such as walnut and oak, as well as softwoods. As a result, the cuts are shiny and smooth. The thin pointed tip of the knife is appropriate for delicate and detailed wood carving.

Functions

Whittling knife serves you for general wood carving, fine chip carving, fine cutting wood, best for wood carving for beginners.

Especially for beginners here’s some quick tips: you must be extra attentive to prevent from injuring, as these knives are extremely sharp. While your first experiences make sure you follow the right technique. Woodcarvers need to control their movements, just like guitarists. So that you should use your wrist, but not elbows managing your knife. It’s also important to use special gloves for carving on the hand holding the wooden piece. Lastly, your tools must always be fit. So don’t forget to keep them sharp to make your work easy and neat.

Sharpening eBooks

To provide you with a piece of all essential information and help you do a perfect carving, find FREE eBooks “5 Easy steps to sharpen hook knife” and “How to sharpen the woodcarving knife” by spoon carver Chris Malcolm by your email immediately after purchase!

So, the whittling knife C2 with its straight blade from special high-quality knife steel and ash wood with a natural linseed oil covering handle is a good choice for wood cutting. The rounded durable point is great for heavier stock removal, working with both soft- and hardwood. Some special features make this knife especially comfortable: the blade is well sharpened and doesn’t take many struggles to get sharpened soon. Moreover, the knife structure makes it pleasant to use for both right- and left-handed.

 

Disadvantages of the best chip carving knife

Like any knife like the Wood Carving Knife C2, it has no sheath or cap out from the box. Though, for beginner and amateur carvers, it might not be a great minus. Those parts are necessary to keep the knife safe and extremely sharpened.

For an average user, this knife is still the best choice to practice their trade.

Pros
  • Fine sharpened from the very unboxing
  • Usable for both right- and left-handed
  • An ash wood handle is covered with natural oil
  • Great for a great variety of wood carving types
  • Low price
Cons
    • Dangerous to use for kids
    • The handle may be inappropriate for people with big hands
    • Might be in some cases uncomfortable to use for some people

 

Conclusion:

Even having some tiny imperfections, the BeaverCraft Wood Carving Knife C2 is one of the top whittling tools and the best wood carving knives for those, who just want to start wood carving for beginners or for those, who just searches for the best chip carving knife.

Steve Jefferson

Three words that describe me the best: - OBSESSED with wood carving; - DETERMINED to make the best source of information about wood carving - HAPPY husband, father, and dreamer I started this blog with my friend Chris. But Chris needed to move to another country and couldn't work on the blog anymore. So for now, I write articles, do the promotions, try out new tools, discover new carving projects and so on. I would really appreciate your feedback on my work.

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