everybody this is brian from carvings
fun and this video is going to be a
complete introduction to whittling for
beginners the goal of the video is to
help give you the basics and
understanding of how to get started
whether if you have the tools already or
if you're just looking to get into it
now by the end of the video you're going
to have a better idea of what kind of
knives to get
what kind of wood you're going to want
to carve recommendations on safety
equipment how to sharpen your
tools there basic cuts to master common
mistakes to avoid and fun little project
ideas for you to get started now before
we get into knives i just want to let
you know this channel is all about
welding and wood carving so if you are
really interested in getting into the
hobby go ahead and like and subscribe
i'll have a whole bunch of different
tutorials coming out and other little
tips and tricks
so what exactly makes a good whittling
knife most whittling knives you're going
to find are going to have a nice short
blade that's easy to control so you can
make nice precise cuts a comfortable
handle to hold on to because you're
going to be holding onto the knife for
probably 30 minutes to a couple hours at
a time
and not only that you want a blade that
has the right steel hardness which is
between 58 and 61 rockwell hardness this
is a nice little sweet spot where you
have good edge retention so that it's
not too soft where the edge dulls really
quickly and it's not too hard where the
edge starts to chip now these knives are
a good little spread of examples for
different knives you want to look into
the cheapest knives i would recommend
myself are going to be beaver craft they
make decent quality tools for a very
affordable cost
i don't like recommending anything
cheaper than them because then you start
getting inconsistent edge grinds and
just the quality of the
like the no name brand tools just go
downhill beavercraft is widely available
highly recommend them if you are on a
budget then after that flex cut and occ
are great great options to
to choose flex cut is going to be more
widely available you can probably go to
most
most wood working
shops or wood carving shops and you're
going to find flex cut they're also
highly
widely available online as well
occ is another great option here these
are more hand hand forged tools so
uh compared to the mass produced ones
like beaver craft and flex cuts these
are going to be more limited supply but
they're amazing little knives for the
about the same price as the flex cuts
problem is you're gonna have a hard time
finding them you're gonna have to like
find them at smaller online stores like
treeline usa or mountain wood carvers
now there are nicer higher quality tools
like this one is made by helvey this is
a handcrafted knife in my opinion is one
of the better ones out there
there are other companies you want to
look into like
deep adventures or drake
they make wonderful wonderful knives
thing is you will have to wait for them
to make it since these are made uh
by order
so
the the helvey knives are have a pretty
substantial wait list so if you want one
now you're gonna
probably have to put your name on the
list and maybe three or so months later
you're going to get one
that's the downside to some of the nicer
high quality ones but to me it is worth
it
otherwise flex cut occ great knives
they're going to last you a long time
all right let's go into some pocket
knives really quick there are a bunch of
different pocket knives out there i'm
not going to be able to cover them at
all
but these are some of the ones that just
quickly come to mind you can always use
your swiss army knife now i do recommend
if you're going to use a swiss army
knife you get one with a smaller blade
on it in addition to the larger blade
why is that because you have a nice
large blade for roughing out the the
carving and then you have a nice small
blade where you can make those nice
precise cuts now this one doesn't have
it on here but if you can get one with a
saw on it that's even better because
then you can cut off branches off
trees and you can
carve the wood like that some other
great options this one's one of my
favorite pocket knives for whittling
it's made by master carver it's the
master carver pocket wheeler 2 it's a
nice 440c uh
carbon steel blade
it's a beautiful little classy looking
knife it's a lock blade knife as well
and it's perfectly made for whittling on
the go
if you are on a budget and you don't
mind putting uh an edge on the
uh the the knives because uh when you
get really cheap the you're gonna have
to actually sharpen the knives this one
from rough rider is their uh i think
there's a classic carbon sway back
whittler it is a decent
knife it comes with a couple different
uh
knife shapes on there uh you got your
standard
blades right there uh with a nice flat
edge on it you can also get the ones
with the curved edge
um
good little option i think this one's
like somewhere around 20
now for some of you that are like me and
carry around a
multi-tool with you like a leatherman
like this is just the leatherman
skeletool cx
so it's the smaller one that i have
these are great options as well but i do
have one recommendation make sure you
get the ones that have the
154cm steel
blade reason is is this is a higher
carbon steel blade and has better edge
retention than their standard stainless
steel
blades so if you're going to be getting
a leatherman and you want to use it for
wiggling a lot looking to get into 154cm
blades on there they're going to
perform a little bit better for you now
continuing on
to what kind of knife you should look
into as well
typically you're going to find a lot of
the knives with just the flat
cutting edge on there i personally
prefer those myself and do recommend
those for the beginners reason being is
that one they're easier to take care of
and two you have a better idea where
that tip is if you're trying to make
small
detailed cuts so a blade with this that
sweeps back a little bit with a curved
edge might be a little bit harder to add
details with
now for what length of blade you should
get
this is primarily going to depend on
what size carvings you're going to be
doing if you're doing something like
this where it's something that fits in
the size of your the palm of your hand
or even a little bit bigger maybe even
up to like this elephant that i made
right here um you're gonna want a larger
blade obviously
but the ideal blade length that i've
been finding for myself at least is
between an inch and a half and a two
inch blade um a lot of people like to
say that an inch and three fourths is
that nice little sweet spot and it will
cover for most
um
most whittling purposes you don't need a
bunch of different size blades matter of
fact you can just use
just one one size blade and you'll get
the job done for
99 of your projects you don't need
multiple different knives you can just
get
one good knife and you should be set for
a long time
all right so let's talk about the
different types of wood you're gonna
probably see and might want to start
using yourself now the ideal wood that
most people are going to be using is
called basswood also known as lindenwood
or limewood depending on where you're at
in the world now the reason why a lot of
people like using basswood over most
other woods is for a couple different
reasons here one the wood grain itself
which is the fibers that go straight
down the the wood
um is very nice and fine and uniform so
it's not squiggling all over the place
and it doesn't it's not so big or coarse
where it starts to split the wood when
you're carving not only that the wood is
easily carved by a hand with a knife so
it's soft enough to cut with the hand
tool but also hard enough where you can
keep nice details in there
a lot of people also like the coloration
of it and it's just
a wonderful looking
uh piece of wood when you get done
carving it there and they paint up
pretty nicely as well
so they're it's just a good all-around
wood to use some other popular woods
that i see people using
are
pine because it's easily available
and also balsa wood because it's nice
and soft now when you're whittling with
balsa wood i do highly recommend you do
a slicing motion you can't just push
into the balsa wood because it's so soft
it'll start to squoosh
so balsa wood you're going to want to do
a little slicing motion now places i
like to buy my best wood i personally
like to buy my best foot on uh line from
a guy on ebay it's air dried basswood it
carves really really nice and it's some
of the better wood that i've had that's
more easily available to me you can also
get the stuff online um
if you're getting it on amazon it can it
can be a hit or miss i personally
recommend you get the one from
beavercraft because it's more consistent
it's it's good quality wood otherwise
there's a bunch of other different
places on they can look into getting as
well i'll put them in the description
below and you can shop around and see
what
works best for you all right so let's
talk about safety equipment uh fact of
the matter is you're gonna be dealing
with a very sharp knife right next to
your fingers and no matter how good you
think you are with a knife you still run
the risk of cutting yourself
i like to wear slice resistant gloves
and little homemade
thumb guards to help prevent myself from
getting cut up by my knives these are
not expensive at all they're very
affordable uh starting off with these
uh
super cheap slice resistant gloves uh
you can get these for like a pair of
them for five bucks on amazon or
something like that uh super affordable
only problem i find with them is that
the wood chips like to get stuck in the
fibers which is why i use this dex fit
level five slice resistant glove it has
a nice
little rubberized palm on it the rubber
does not rub off on my wood carvings at
all and it's nice and comfortable to to
use
another thing i like to use are these
self ed um adhering ace wraps just as
like finger guards i have one on here
because i use it to push on the back of
my knife and uh it just it adds more
comfort on there so it's a nice little
cushion but these may not be rated to be
slice resistant but they do prevent the
blade from accidentally cutting me a
great little thing on on there the rolls
are what like five to eight dollars each
super cheap you can also use the tool
wraps i think this one was uh
this is the like stuff you just get at
the hardware store uh super thin but you
would have to wrap it a couple times i
prefer the ace wraps myself they're
cheap
easy to use and they're also like
reusable like i've been using this one
for a long time you can see how nasty it
is but yeah so i do recommend you
getting
a slice resistant glove it will save you
a lot of
heartache in the future because uh i
don't know if you're gonna be able to
see it but i have a couple scars going
on right there um basically i had two
slices in almost the same exact spot
after i cut myself like uh one year
apart in the same spot just recently i
just kind of tapped my finger on
my knife right there and got a nice
little cut it healed up all right but
it's like you you're probably going to
cut yourself
wear a slice resistant glove it will
help you in the long run all right so
let's go over sharpening your knife here
now this step is very important for all
you just getting into whittling and wood
carving as it will make or break your
entire experience using a dull knife to
uh start starting to whittle with well
you may be able to
cut through the wood it will be uh
harder to do
a sharper knife will help
cut through the wood a little bit easier
but some of them will require work like
this one well right here well if you use
a nice and sharp knife you can literally
fly right through the wood without any
problems it is a night and day
difference compared to this knife right
here so let's just keep that in mind
here now the tools that you're going to
want are going to be dependent upon what
knife you're going to be using if you're
just going to be using a bog standard
cheap pocket knife that has a very dull
edge like this one while they could cut
to the wood i can rub my finger on the
edge and push into it and it would not
cut me i can somewhat do that with this
knife right here but it's a little bit
more refined i'm not going to push on to
it because it is sharper but if i did
that with this flex cut knife it's going
to cut me to ribbons i do not care to
show you
that my finger can withstand that edge
all right so
if you bring in your your own knife
you're going to want to have a nice
sharpening stone i recommend the
two-sided stones this is an oil stone
you can get the the wet stones online
sharp pebble is a good option i like to
get the ones that have a 400 to 600 grit
stone on one side and an 800 to 1000
grit on the other side
this is great for getting
your blade
shaped and then helping start to refine
that edge so you shape it on the coarser
grit and then refine it on the nicer one
if you're getting a wood carving knife
uh from
file or two cherries or like the
solingen
knives
i would start at about step three for
what i'm going to be showing you here
the reason being is that the edges are
usually shaped
uh properly or close to properly and you
can just use a basic uh and you can and
you can use like wet dry sandpaper i
have a thousand grit and two thousand
grit on different sides of the
wood block here uh to help refine that
edge create the bur and make a nice
super sharp edge now if you're getting a
proper whittling knife that comes with
the nice edge on it like flex cut
beaver craft healthy knives or any of
the really high-end knives occ and
whatnot all you're going to need to do
is get a leather strop put some
stropping compound on there and then
just keep it honed sharp you won't need
to ever go down to this
coarse stone once your edge is super
sharp all you're going to need to do is
use your
honing strap to keep it honed
you will not ever have to go all the way
down here again with with this so if
you're going to sharpen this you do not
go to your stone again you do not even
go to your thousand to two thousand grit
uh stone or sandpaper you go right to
your
leather strap with
this dropping compound all right so
let's get started here on a quick
demonstration now if you're like i said
before if you're bringing in
any pocket knife that you want to use or
just any kind of knife really that's not
meant for whittling and wood carving
you're going to want to start at step
one here with your coarse stone this is
going to be using a 400 600 grit stone
and the purpose of this
step is to shape the knife only i'm
going to be doing it with this
knife
like i said before i would start at step
3 with this knife but i'm just using it
for a demonstration here
so what you're going to be wanting to do
is shape that edge
to a much more fine point most
most pocket knives are going to have a
pretty broad edge grind on there on the
bevel you kind of want to bring it in
just the hair the ideal
uh
cutting edge angle that you're going to
want to aim for is between a 12 and 20
degree
inclusive edge so from one side to the
other 12 to 20 degrees is what most
people consider to be ideal so i got my
oil stone with a little bit of oil on it
and all what i'm gonna do here is
basically
try and get a nice little edge on here
this is this step does not make it sharp
this step shapes the edge only
so that's pretty good now do the other
side
[Music]
this step does not take a lot of effort
at all
since we're using a coarser stone it's
just basically
shaping that edge
[Music]
all right once i got that
edge
angle that i believe i'm looking for
you can go ahead and flip it over i'm
just gonna do a little bit more down
here
all right and then once you got that
edge angle you're looking for
um go ahead and just uh clean your stone
a little bit and then for me
i'm gonna flip it over to the 800 to
1000 grit side for step two
now step two is going to be help
starting to refine that edge like if you
rub your finger going up on this side uh
on one side you're gonna probably feel a
nice little
bur or edge forming on there it's going
to be kind of rough on one side but
smooth on the other side
this is just a little wire edge that
kind of moves back and forth while
you're
sharpening
this is normal don't worry about it
we're going to be removing that a little
bit later also your edges can be a
little bit rough um at the moment since
you use a heavier grit stone like i said
edge is not sharp it is shaped
different s not sharp but shaped
all right so now we're going to start
refining it and removing some of those
heavy cuts that we made on the other
side
make sure when you're doing this you're
holding it at the same angle as the
other uh as the other side you were you
don't want to vary and create a
different
edge angle grind on there so try and
keep it the same
angle this might take some practice
there's also some tools out there to
help you out with it but once you get
the hang of it you'll you'll know what
you're doing
now that we got most of the
deep gouges removed from the step one
uh we're gonna start moving over to step
three which is where i would have
originally brought this knife over um if
i if i had bought it new but for
demonstration like i said i was just
using from the get-go so two cherries
file
or
solingen knives i would bring them in at
step three here and start basically
creating the burr on the edge of the
knife which is basically kind of an
indicator where of how sharp the edge is
because the more you sharpen it the more
you're pushing the metal
towards a point it's going to create
this little flap on there or a little
wire edge that um basically where the
two uh planes on the edge meet
it's creating a very very sharp edge and
this point i'm not going to do in the
back and forth motion uh i'm going to
stay on the 800 to 1000 grit side and
then just push away
so
with the i'm gonna push away with the
cutting edge trailing i'm not gonna lead
with it anymore uh so from this point
forward i'm gonna be moving the knife
with the cutting edge trailing and
pushing
with this mine going away from me make
sure to do it to the other side
and again keep it at the same angle
you don't want to vary this this stage
at all
all right and once you've refined that
edge a little bit you're going to see
like a little
small like glinting line
going along the edge
it might not be super consistent all the
way across that's fine it's just going
to be like a little
slight discoloration where that edge is
being formed on on the
steel there
so take it here and we're going to move
on to the next step
step four
so at this stage i like to use the finer
grit sandpaper if you have a stone that
does the same thing you'll be fine i
like to start a thousand grit and move
up to 2000 grit and do the same exact
motions that i did
on the last go i'll probably push it
maybe about
10 to 20 times on each side what this is
doing is helping refine
that edge
um that i'm creating on there and
starting to remove that wire burr that
i'm making
on that edge
all right flipping it over to the 2000
grit side
to further refine that
same motions as before
i'm already getting some of the burr
coming off
uh right there you'll see small little
thin wirey metal flakes coming off
this is normal
just make sure you don't bury it into
your
sharpening tools here
so at this step step four you're
basically going to have your knife
pretty dang sharp right now but we're
going to take it a step further
and this is where we're going to be
keeping it for the most part this is
going to be using your leather strap
and stropping compound
now i'm using the beaver craft paddle
stop i personally like it it's good
quality strap for the price you're
paying for it uh just get the one with
the green strapping compound it's really
going to be the only color you're going
to need from beavercraft it'll get the
job done now and in the future
but in order to apply it literally just
apply it like a crayon
and it's just gonna
basically smear on there um now if
you're a little bit of a stickler like i
am and like it and want to be like super
smooth
like i have on my
other
strap right there
there are some tricks you can do um
first you're going to want to get get
this on here
and then
what you're going to want to probably
use is like a heat gun or something like
that or hair dryer or just like hover it
over your like stove element and you're
going to
um melt the the wax compound into it a
little bit more you can do this by just
rubbing your finger in there as well but
i just found this seat guns faster
now when you're done it should look
something like this it does not need to
be super thick
um it
just thin a thin layer on the surface
will be more than adequate the main
thing i like to worry about is making it
even it'll be all over your fingers at
this stage too but that's normal don't
worry about it you don't have to add or
remove this compound
very often
since i test out a lot of knives and and
sharpen a lot of knives i'll probably
redo mine like every three to six months
but most people hardly ever do it maybe
once a year at the most now stropping is
going to be the same movements as steps
three and four where you're going to be
putting the
blade on the on this drop here and
pushing the edge with the tail the
cutting edge
trailing you do don't ever want to start
cutting into this drop because then
you're going to damage it
so always
make it so that you're stropping with
the cutting edge
trailing and not cutting into the
material
and flip it over
now for this stage
there are a lot of different ways to do
it what i like to do
is
lay my blade flat to the edge and then
tilt it up just the hair that way the
the edge is going to be
have a nice little bezel on it
um and it keeps it nice and sharp
you don't need to push into your strop
it's not going to do anything for you at
all just
slowly
put light pressure on the edge and then
strop it about 15 to 30 times and you
should be fine
make sure when you're
carving to
you're going to be stropping uh probably
every 20 to 30 minutes if you're using
like a softer steel knife like a regular
stainless steel knife like your swiss
army knife maybe every 15 to 20 minutes
now another thing too reason why we use
our leather strop
to
hone our edge versus like a 3000 grit or
6000 grit wet stone or something like
that is the strops take no
uh initial preparation so you can
literally just pick up your strop and
start going with it you don't need to
put oil on
an oil stone you don't need to get water
on the wet stone it's not messy
uh it's
it's the ideal choice for most people to
hone their edges with
so that's basically it
sharpening is not really as hard as a
lot of people think it is i'm
getting my piece of wood here now this
edge is
super sharp i am very happy with it and
we can move on to the next step here all
right so now that we got our nice
sharpened blade let's go over some basic
cuts you as beginners are going to need
to know how to do i have my safety
equipment on here to help prevent myself
from getting cut so let's get on with it
here the most basic cut that most of you
are going to do is what's called a push
cut
basically let's do it on this side here
you're going to take your knife and
you're going to push
the blade
through the wood here notice this hand
is going to be doing the control work
this hand is applying the power with the
thumb so i'm basically
kind of rotating
the knife on my my thumb here and that
does two things it applies force to the
the cutting edge and not only that
provides a kind of a slicing motion
to help cut through the wood you can
just simply push your way through the
wood but if you apply that slicing
motion it makes it a lot easier
so a simple little push cut you can push
it through you can rotate it and slice
it through those are going to be your
basic cuts for taking off a lot of wood
now similarly there's another one called
the pairing cut which we'll see a lot of
people doing is basically drawing the
knife back towards you notice here that
when i'm pulling the knife towards me
when the blade comes out loose it's not
anywhere near
this thumb right here is actually going
right above it i'm not banging it into
uh bling banging the blade into my thumb
here i'm keeping my fingers well out of
the way this is doing i'm doing this for
two reasons one it builds proper muscle
memory and two just in case of this ends
up failing you're still not going to cut
yourself so
it's
it's just ideal to keep your thumb out
of the way and be mindful of all your
fingers when you're carving now another
very important very useful
cut is what's called the stop cut so
what we're going to do is push in
directly into the wood right there
and create our stop cut and then what
we're going to do is when we make our
push cut through or to come up to that
stop cut right there and we just make a
nice little
solid stop which creates a nice little
shape
right there so
that way you can create like
the start of the face like if i wanted
to i can probably do like
a nose right there so you have the
the starts of
a nose here
so i mean you can create shapes in the
wood very easily with the stop cut
um the stop cut also has another
variation to it where it's basically two
intersecting stop cuts i see people call
this a
a v cutting of some sort but i think
this is just more two intersecting
uh cuts where you just make like a v
right there
um
another one um
that i see a lot of people do this one
is also called the v-cut um i see a lot
of people also doing like
chip carving and whatnot so you make a
cut in at an angle and you make another
cut in at the opposing angle and you can
create this little divot in there let's
create a
a bigger one for the camera so you can
see it a little bit better
but
basically the tips are intersecting and
i'm creating a nice little v here
and then if you do it right
the wood should just like pop right out
and you create like a little
little gouge in there
another one that you can do is called
the pyramid cut or a stab cut um this is
very akin to chip carving um but we're
gonna do is gonna push in
and create like a little
pyramid into the wood here
if i do this right it should
come out as a little wood chip
yeah there we go so it creates like a
little inverted
pyramid into there i'm not too terribly
good at this myself it um chip carving
is
honestly one of my weaker points i am
still learning how to do it but you can
basically cut into the wood like that
you don't ever want to dig into the wood
and pry with it
that that can actually damage the blade
which we're going to go into the next
section here mistakes to avoid as
beginners the main one like i was just
saying there you don't ever want to stab
your knife into there the wood and then
start prying with it these are made of
carbon steel blades and a little bit
more brittle than your standard
stainless steel knives
you will break the tip if you do this
too often
another thing too is knowing how to cut
with the wood grain now the wood grain
on this piece of wood travels
horizontally so cutting with the wood
grain is basically you're slicing the
wood along the path that the wood grain
is taking uh there's another way you cut
it with it which is
across the wood grain so i'm taking my
knife edge and i'm cutting this
direction so
it's going across
the wood grain which is typically a
little bit harder to do
uh
than cutting along or with the wood
grain because with the wood grain you're
kind of splitting between the
uh the grain itself this one you're
literally slicing across the wood grain
now the one that you don't want to do
is cutting up against the wood grain let
me get this set up for you and i'll show
you what i'm talking about cutting
against the wood grain would be cutting
up
and going and pushing up against the
fibers right here so let's say if i
wanted to
shave the little section off right here
like i wanted to just start shaving up
this section you see that it's already
starting like split and for me it's
becoming really really hard to push up
against it
um if i do this the wrong way
i can push up against the that part and
then i might split off a giant section
there like right here i just literally
accidentally ripped off a whole section
that i did not want to
remove this is because it when you're
pushing up against the wood grain it
causes the wood to split and it will
take off the whole section in this case
you don't ever want to go up against it
you want to go back down against that
wood grain it slices so much easier and
you don't run the risk of damaging both
your knife
and also the wood itself
where you don't take off more wood than
you want another thing to keep an eye on
where your fingers are you may have a
slice resistant glove but it does not
mean it is slice proof it is slice
resistant so don't uh don't carve like
this and then have your finger right
here because if it blows
right through the wood right here it can
go right into your finger you don't want
that keep your fingers out of the way
and keep an eye on them same thing when
you're doing the paring cuts just
don't have your fingers where the blade
could possibly go
and also
one of the things that causes a lot of
people to have issues with
is
not maintaining their edge when they're
carving with it every 20 to 30 minutes
with your regular whittling knives
you're going to want to go and stop that
edge
it
what it's going to do is help realign
that edge
and keep it nice and sharp
maybe do like
20 times per side make sure you do it
evenly it's an important step that you
will want to do when you're
whittling it just
it does make a big difference
all right so let's go over some project
ideas that what you guys can do
um now if you're getting started i do
recommend getting a book if you
uh have access to them
i've seen them at libraries i've you can
buy them online uh wherever you get them
there's a whole bunch of different ones
you can get
this one is just one of my favorite ones
it covers a whole bunch of stuff you get
you can do some really cool stuff in
here so
definitely pick this up if you want uh
otherwise you can do stuff like here on
the uh carvings fun youtube channel i
have tutorials
on various little projects to do i have
you can do like a little bear you can do
a dog
you can even do a little simple fox
these are great beginners projects
i made them as easy to follow as
possible and they should be simple
enough that most beginners can do it
with just a regular knife and a piece of
basswood
there's other things you can do like
these cut out blanks i've been wanting
to get into doing this one uh it's
basically just a blank of a cat
cut um
in a 2d fashion so i can finish shaping
it
which is great because it helps it redu
removes all the extra wood that i would
have wanted to cut off to begin with
um
you can also do other project stuff i
know beavercraft has this one i've been
meaning to do this and this is an
awesome little
kit
this is actually a complete beginner's
kit so it comes with a knife it comes
with strap it comes with wood comes with
like little finger wraps and whatnot um
yeah i'm gonna i'm probably gonna do
this one later um it even comes with a
like a glue one stencil
open this up here
yeah it comes with glue on stencils that
you can put onto the wood um it's a neat
little
super simple beginner's kit um
i'm gonna give this one a shot a little
bit later
but yeah um just check out the uh the
carvings fun youtube channel go ahead
like and subscribe you're gonna find a
whole bunch of stuff on there to keep
you going on your whittling and wood
carving journey thank you for watching
everybody and i hope you have ourselves
a great day
