The tools themselves — knives, gouges, V-tools and how they are sized — are in wood carving tools. This page is about using them: the wood, the grain and the hands.
Four kinds of carving
- Whittling — figures and small objects carved with a knife alone, usually held in the hand.
- Chip carving — geometric patterns cut into a flat surface by removing small chips with a knife.
- Relief carving — a design left standing above a lowered background, cut with gouges and a V-tool on a clamped panel.
- Carving in the round — a figure finished on every side, with knives, gouges or both.
Choosing wood to carve
Wood that carves easily is soft enough to cut without force, even in texture so the edge does not jump between hard and soft bands, and straight grained so the cut behaves the same along its length. The Wood Handbook does not rank woods for carving, but its descriptions of US species say which have those qualities — and it singles out basswood as a favourite of wood carvers. Its hardness figure (the Janka side hardness, explained on the Janka hardness scale) shows how much harder the furniture woods are to push an edge through.
| Species | Dry side hardness (lbf) | In the handbook's words |
|---|---|---|
| Quaking aspen | 350 | Straight grained, fine uniform texture, easily worked; lightweight and soft |
| Eastern white pine | 380 | Comparatively uniform texture, straight grained, easy to work; moderately soft |
| American basswood | 410 | Soft and light, fine even texture, straight grained, easy to work with tools; a favourite of wood carvers |
| Butternut | 490 | Rather coarse textured, moderately soft; machines easily and finishes well |
| Black cherry | 950 | Fairly uniform texture, very good machining properties; moderately hard |
| Black walnut | 1,010 | Straight grained, easily worked with tools; heavy and hard |
Hardness at 12% moisture content from Table 5–3b of the Wood Handbook (Forest Products Laboratory tests); descriptions from its chapter 2. Hardness measures resistance to denting, not ease of carving, and 'machines easily' describes machine work, not hand tools.
For a first piece, the answer to which wood is easiest to carve sits at the top of the table: basswood is the handbook's carvers' favourite, with aspen and clear eastern white pine close to it in hardness. Cherry and walnut carve crisply but take well over twice the force to dent, which a beginner feels in every cut. Whatever the species, choose a piece without knots, which are hard and change the grain around them.
Reading the grain
Wood is a bundle of fibres, and an edge behaves differently depending on which way it meets them. Cut along the fibres where they slope down and away from the edge — downhill — and they are severed cleanly. Cut where they rise towards the edge — uphill — and the edge rides under them, levers them up and tears them out, often beyond the line.
- A hollow is cut from each rim down to the bottom, meeting in the middle.
- A round is cut from its high point down each side.
- Where the grain changes direction, so does the cut: if a cut starts to tear, stop and come from the other side.
- End grain is cut with a slicing motion, the edge drawn across as it is pushed, rather than straight in.
The basic cuts
- Stop cut. A cut straight down along a line, with the knife point or a chisel or gouge pressed in. It stops the next cut, so a chip comes away there and a split does not run on into the design.
- Slicing cut. The edge at an angle, meeting the bottom of a stop cut to free a chip.
- Push cut. The knife pushed away from the body, often helped by the thumb of the holding hand pressing on the back of the blade.
- Paring cut. The knife drawn towards the thumb of the holding hand, like peeling an apple — controlled, but the cut most often made with a thumb guard.
- V-tool outline. A V-tool run just outside a line, cut downhill, to separate a design from its background before the background is lowered.
Chip carving shows the geometry plainly. A three-corner chip has three walls, each cut from one edge of a triangle down at the same angle, so they meet at a single deepest point over the triangle's centre. That point lies at the triangle's inradius, r, from every edge — a third of the height, or side ÷ (2√3) — so the depth is r × tan θ. For a triangle with 1/2 in sides, r is about 0.144 in. The angle θ is the carver's choice; what matters is holding it the same on all three walls, or they will not meet and the chip will not lift out.
Formula
r = side ÷ (2√3)
d = r × tan θ
r: the triangle's inradius; d: the depth where the three walls meet; θ: the wall angle measured from the surface.
Holding the work
Flexcut tells beginners to clamp the work to a stable surface whenever they can, and Woodcarving Illustrated's staff call a holding device with both hands gripping the tool the safest approach. Panels and blocks clamp easily in a bench vise or to the bench. Knife work held in the hand cannot, so the holding hand is placed where a slip will miss it, and protected:
- A carving glove on the holding hand stops slicing cuts; no glove stops every injury, and a point or small gouge can puncture it. A glove's ANSI/ISEA 105 cut level (A1 to A9) says nothing about punctures, which are tested separately.
- A thumb guard protects the thumb in paring cuts. Vet wrap is not cut resistant and is no substitute.
- A sharp edge. A dull one needs force, and force is what makes a tool slip; Flexcut's sign that it needs stropping is when it starts to drag.
Safety— Where the edge goes if it slips
Before every cut, look at where the edge will travel if it slips, and make sure neither hand is there. General shop rules are in woodworking safety rules.
A first practice board
Practising the stop cut and the chip
Prepare a board
Plane or sand a piece of basswood about 1/2 in thick smooth and clamp it flat to the bench.
Draw triangles
Draw a row of equilateral triangles with 1/2 in sides, with a pencil dot at each centre.
Make the stop cuts
With the knife point at each centre dot, cut straight down along the line to each corner, deepest at the centre and coming out to nothing at the corner.
Lift the chips
Hold the knife at a steady angle and slice in from each edge towards the centre, so the three walls meet at the bottom of the stop cuts. A chip that will not come free means a wall stopped short; recut it rather than pry.
Read the result
Clean walls that meet at a point show the angle was held. Torn walls on one side show a cut ran uphill; turn the board and come from the other side.
Before carving a first piece
- Soft, straight-grained, knot-free wood such as basswood
- Work clamped, or a glove on the holding hand and a thumb guard for paring
- Edge stropped so it cuts without force
- Each cut planned downhill with the grain
- Stop cuts made before chips are lifted
Sources
Wood descriptions and hardness are copied from the Wood Handbook (2021): working properties from chapter 2 and side hardness from chapter 5's Table 5–3b, the US species the Forest Products Laboratory tested itself; imported species are left out because their figures come from other laboratories. The handbook does not rank woods for carving, so neither does this page beyond its words. The chip geometry is exact; the wall angle is the carver's choice. No practice board here was carved for this page.
- 1.
Chapter 2: Characteristics and Availability of Commercially Important Woods. USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory — Wood Handbook, FPL-GTR-282, 2021.
Used for: Species descriptions: basswood soft and light, of fine even texture, straight grained, easy to work with tools and a favourite of wood carvers; aspen straight grained, fine and uniform, easily worked, lightweight and soft; eastern white pine of comparatively uniform texture, straight grained and easy to work; butternut rather coarse textured, moderately soft and machining easily; black cherry of fairly uniform texture with very good machining properties, moderately hard; black walnut straight grained, easily worked with tools, heavy and hard.
- 2.
Chapter 5: Mechanical Properties of Wood. USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory — Wood Handbook, FPL-GTR-282, 2021.
Used for: Side hardness at 12% moisture content from Forest Products Laboratory tests on US species (Table 5–3b): quaking aspen 350 lbf, eastern white pine 380, American basswood 410, butternut 490, black cherry 950, black walnut 1,010.
- 3.
Selecting Your Flexcut Tools. Flexcut Tool Company.
Used for: Beginners should always try to clamp the work to a stable surface; palm tools held in one hand while the other holds the work.
- 4.
Sharpening Your Tools. Flexcut Tool Company.
Used for: Stropping when the tool begins to drag through a cut.
- 5.
Staff of Woodcarving Illustrated. Comparing Carving Gloves. Woodcarving Illustrated, 2026.
Used for: Guard the holding hand with a carving glove and place it out of the tool's path; gloves stop slicing cuts but not all injuries, especially punctures; thumb guards for paring cuts; vet wrap not cut resistant; a holding device with both hands gripping the tool the safest approach.
- 6.
ANSI/ISEA 105 Testing. Intertek.
Used for: Cut resistance rated A1 to A9 under ANSI/ISEA 105, with puncture tested separately.
About this reference
Written by BenchRoot Editorial. How BenchRoot sources, checks and corrects its pages is set out in the Editorial Policy. If something here is wrong or unclear, the contact page explains how to tell us.