Going to try something different

[Yorkshire Sam]

Had a hankering for some time to try my hand at woodcarving. I am not particularly arty but always wanted to give this a go.
Been shopping around for some advice and trying to pick up some carving chisels just to give it a go.
I am amazed at the prices being asked for old carving chisels, even the not so old, perhaps someone who had also tried thier hand and gave up. Managed to get a few to give it a go at a reasonable price just now they all need a good sharpening before I can try them.

What really surprised me was that some of the better named chisels on ebay were actually more expensive than buying new. For example saw a 7/8 Ashley Isles fantail chisel for nearly £30 plus postage .... the same chisel can be had for less than £25 plus postage from them.
I was even more surprised when I kept a watch on it and found it actually sold for that price too!

 

[monkeybiter]

The problem with buying second hand, when you are first populating your basic kit, is that the occasional bargains never seem to be what you actually want at the time. I've found I can pick up some good deals now and then, now that I'm not in desperate need.
I've used these before, good deals now and then.
http://www.oldtools.co.uk/45-carving-tools

 

[AJB Temple]

Yes, people pay silly money on ebay very often. It puzzles me too. It increasingly has scam tendencies as sellers often grossly inflate postage costs.

 

[thetyreman]

Yes, people pay silly money on ebay very often. It puzzles me too. It increasingly has scam tendencies as sellers often grossly inflate postage costs.

you also get a lot of buyers lowballing, who have ruined ebay, expecting you to drop prices way below what is comfortable, and then demand free postage.

 

[cedarwood]

Well I nearly had a nasty buying experience just before christmas. I found that I needed to replace my 14 year old fire wire card (no drivers for it since XP) so searched online found 2 good deals from 2 Google certified shops both the same price for the same card.
So I chooses the one with freepost, puts it in the basket presses the paypal button gets back to the site to finalise the order and low and behold NOT freepost at all, it was only free pick up postage was £12.99, which was very close to the item price pipper that for a rip off quickly removed item from basket and didn't pay I hate sites that con people this way.
Went to the other site where postage was just £1.99, needless to say I soon let google know of the sites so called freepost.

 

[Lons]

Hi Sam

My advice would be not to buy a set unless it's one of the really cheapie sets that lidl / Aldi sometimes have or similar off ebay for the sole purpose just to see if you enjoy carving and can treat them as disposable or paint tin openers when you decide either it's not for you or buy better quality if you get hooked. They won't keep an edge but are sharp enough to experiment with.
My first carving was done with a couple of reground old bench chisels and a scalpel.

If buying decent quality then just get 2 or 3 as in a set there are invariably tools you will rarely if ever use, the exception to that is a set of palm chisels as they are very useful.

I note you're in Crook. I live about 20 miles (25 mins) North of the Metro Centre and would be very happy to offer advice and demonstrate and let you try out some chisels if you want to make the trip North. I guess about 50 mile so maybe an hour. Just pm me if so and maybe we can arrange something.

cheers
Bob

 

[Claymore]

..........

 

[Lons]

Agree with ya Bob, I used to do a lot of wood/stone/resin carving until my hands were damaged and had loads of expensive Tiranti chisels/knives which looked great but i only used 3 of them lol total waste of money. I now use Foredom's etc for powercarving to create dust instead of chips. The main thing with any chisels is to learn how to sharpen them correctly and even more keep them sharp....blunt chisels and knives are more dangerous to use.

Cheers and Happy New Year everyone

Brian

Yep spot on Brian, I assume Sam as a woodworker knows how to sharpen but with woodcarving its really just regular stropping of the tool edge once it's properly sharp, depends on the material you're carving of course.

I have a Foredom as well but it's one of the old discontinued models " H " type with the heavy duty square shaft and collet handpiece which I use for 6mm and 1/4" shaft burrs and I bought an H30 chucked handpiece for the other shafts. It's an excellent bit of kit.

I want to try some soapstone carving as well but so much to do, so little time - this retirement lark is strange.

 

[Eric The Viking]

[sorry - just read this back: didn't intend a thread hijack - will shut up on this topic now!]

@cedarwood: go Linux; ditch Windows; use your old firewire card with confidence!

I've just put it on a 17-year old laptop (with firewire) - 32 bit as the processor is too old for anything else. My desktop machine also has firewire (a PCI card), which works better than it ever did under Windows (for camcorder control and data transfer). I have one external firewire disk enclosure, which I haven't tried, but I expect that to be flawless, as the disk protocol is much simpler to implement.

In a similar way, I use a Wacom tablet. The 20-year-old one I have (serial) is almost plug and play. The modern one is P+P with support integral with the operating system -- I never got that with Windows.

Windows is so last-millennium...

 

[Jacob]

If you want to wood carve you don't have to have the "proper" sets of kit - all sorts of carving has been done with all sorts of tools, from normal joinery tools, pen knives, to chain saws.
Just get stuck in with whatever you have.

 

[monkeybiter]

If you want to wood carve you don't have to have the "proper" sets of kit

Jacob's right, I have five small screwdrivers pressed into service as detail chisels and a couple of bits of hacksaw blade ground as 'crevice hooks' [pat. pend.], but a few decent gouges will be worth having and save some frustration, especially if you want to tackle something a little larger.

 

[Lons]

I agree with Jacob and Mike which was why I said

My first carving was done with a couple of reground old bench chisels and a scalpel.

. You don't need to spend money to see if carving is something you might enjoy. That said however there is a lot of satisfaction using a good quality, razor sharp chisel on a nice bit of lime, boxwood or walnut.