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Show Notes
Health and safety should play a major role in any work industry, and woodcarving is no exception. There are lots of little things that can help aid you in staying safe – like protective gear, or correct technique – but one main way to stay safe is to work in the right frame of mind.
Get your head in the game
Your attitude is a big factor in whether you will work safely or not. If you are frustrated, the chances are your mindset won’t be right and you will end up rushing or forcing your cuts, which more commonly than not, will end in an injury. It is then our advice to you that when it comes to working with tools (especially knives and axes) that you don’t use them while you’re in a bad mood. When we aren’t thinking straight we lose our respect for the severity of what we do, and we act recklessly. The primary tools used in wood carving need to be respected! They can do some serious damage if they are used incorrectly, therefore it is good practice to cultivate that healthy kind of fear or respect for them early on in your carving process.
Another way our frame of mind can affect our safety, is by becoming too comfortable with our tools. There is a point where we should be comfortable and able to work comfortably, but if this comfort goes too far, it can lead us to forget that our tools are dangerous. This was the problem when Shaun nearly chopped his finger off! He became too comfortable with the axe and ended up working too quickly, getting closer and closer to his fingers each day, until finally it was too close. Slow down, take your time, and think through every cut you make, whether it would be with the knife or with the axe.
This should be your frame of mind, but now let’s look at some practical tips to help keep you safe!
Technique is key
One way to help slow down your carving, and to truly focus on what you are doing, is to get into the habit of continually analyzing your work piece. This also helps you produce an overall better product. Let us explain why.
When it comes to something like a spoon, there is a lot of symmetry involved and you don’t want to take too much wood away from one side and not have enough wood on the other side to compensate. Take the transition from the spoon bowl to the handle, you ideally would like the handle of the spoon to come out of the middle of the spoon bowl, right? Well, if when carving the transition from the right side of the bowl into the handle, you take too much wood away, you won’t have enough wood on the left side of the bowl to bring it down evenly and therefore your handle will be positioned too much to the left side of the spoon bowl. However, by evaluating where you stand after ever 2 or 3 cuts (it doesn’t have to be in-depth, just an overall glance) you can tell how much wood you need to remove and where from, before its too late.
Remember one thing, you can always remove more wood when carving, but you can never put wood back, once its carved away its gone for good. So, take your time and keep looking at where you need to remove wood from and this will give you a better overall product, but how will this help keep you safe?
Well, if you are continually stopping after every few cuts, this will slow you down and prevent you from rushing, it will also make you more focused on exactly what cut to make and how to make it. Give it a try, we guarantee it will help keep you focused and you will injure yourself a lot less.
Another top tip for staying safe is to always practice your knife cuts without the knife in your hand, maybe use a pencil and imagine it’s the knife. Now work through the action you would take if you were performing a cut and see where the pencil ends up and the path it takes to get there, if that pencil touches any part of your hand on the way, you know your cutting technique is not good. Once you feel confident with the pencil, use the knife, and then once you are assured, put that cut into practice and start carving, remembering to take it slow and concentrate on what you’re doing.
When it comes to axing, something similar applies, one major tip we can give you for axe safety is only ever to cut up to half way you are chopping. This allows you to keep your hand fully out of the way and the chance of injury is significantly reduced, the only way you can cut yourself doing this technique is by chopping without looking (or trying to hurt yourself!) It goes without saying, but you should always grip the piece of wood from the back, if your hand is at the top of the piece of wood at the back and you are axing halfway up the piece of wood on the front, your hand should be completely out of the danger zone. The higher you chop on the piece of wood, the closer you are getting to your hands, if you do have to go above halfway, bare in mind your hand will be closer, so smaller and more precise cuts are called for here. As a good rule of thumb, it’s always best practice to never lift the axe above the hand holding the workpiece. Stick to these axing tips and you should come out accident free!
Closing words
There are more precautions you could take when it comes to staying safe, and these come in the way of protection. Firstly, as a carver the area which is going to come under the most fire is your hands. There are special cut resistant gloves that you could get to help keep you safe, however our own woodcarver Shaun, opts out of wearing these, for him, he loses to much dexterity and prefers to work without them. However, these would be a great choice for beginners who are freshly learning how to carve. They won’t offer much protection from any strayed axe blows but will protect from nicks and scratches while carving with the knife. One thing to keep in mind is also ventilation, if you are going to be sanding your products its good practice to use something like a face mask, or to sand outside when possible.
All these things may sound like common sense, however, if you were to just keep focused on them while you carve, you will drastically cut down on the amount of injuries you will concur. Accidents do and will happen but staying safe is a major theme in any practice!
We hope you have enjoyed todays episode, if you have any questions please feel free to write us at info@fggdesigns.com.
