Little Book of Whittling
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With a friendly, down-home style, this guide encourages readers to whittle away the hours. Great for beginners looking for an easy way to get started and more advanced carvers looking for a relaxing way to spend their time, this instructional manual provides 20 projects, including knives, forks, birds, animals, trees, and flowers. Chapters detail the proper whittling tools and materials, including what woods are best to carve, and how to start projects by selecting and safely sharpening the best knife for each project. Children's Literature Whittling conjures up thoughts of rocking on a front porch or sitting by a pot-bellied stove enjoying the passage of time. In this day and age of multi-tasking and abhorrence of doing nothing, perhaps a resurgence of whittling is what we need. Getting started is easy. Some wood and a knife are all that are required. Small branches or twigs are the pieces of choice, but milled scraps can also be used. The knife should have two blades, a 1 1/2 inch blade that is used for 90% of the carving and a 2 1/2 inch blade that is used for 10%. The number one rule for carving wood with a knife is to keep the blade sharp. Using a two-sided sharpening stone is the first step in this process. The second step is moving the blade across wet-or-dry sand paper. The final step is to use a stropping compound on a leather strop. The basic cutting strokes are described and clearly illustrated with photographs. Instructions are provided for eighteen projects. Some of the projects are functional devices like spoons, forks, knives, spreaders and pokers. More fanciful creations include balancing stick figures, animal heads, birds, flowers and trees. Numerous photographs illustrate this very informative guide to a forgotten art.
