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Comment by fuzztester | Hacker News Reader

>I’m sure if you do woodworking for a living a CNC is amazing, but I’ll take the slow path on this.

Similar here. I do wood carving as a hobby. I could buy some carving tools, like chisels of various shapes and sizes, and a mallet or two, but I prefer to just use a knife - a normal kitchen knife, a Cartini, somewhat more expensive than a no-name brand, but still cheap. Of course, that means that I cannot create even moderately complex pieces, but that's okay. I am still a beginner at it, and I am fine with creating only simple stuff. I just do it for fun.

After some time, I do plan to research some carving tools, and may buy a few if I get good advice on it, and if the tools seem to make sense for me.

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I find carving is a very nice escape. It’s a simple process, I mostly use one or two knives to do all the work, and then you’re done whenever you feel like you’re done.

You can’t over plan it, and as you work progress is very clear.

>I find carving is a very nice escape.

It sure is. I forget any issues or worries I have while doing it.

What kind of wood do you use for carving?

I have used pine in the past, e.g., I once carved a spoon out of it. One advantage of pine is that, having resin, it has a good scent.

Currently I am using old teak, a piece which a sawmill shop guy gave me for free, and which I was pleasantly surprise to find, was soft enough to carve with my knife. I would have thought that it would be too hard to carve, because I have heard that teak is a strong wood, but maybe that kind of strength is not the same as hardness, in terms of physical properties of materials. I need to read up on that topic.

I use basswood, I have family who use it for firewood, so I can get big already dry pieces for free and then I cut them down to workable size with a hand saw.

It's cheaper at my local lumber store than online as well.

I haven't been very adventurous with other woods because of that.

Basswood is light and easy to carve, but it doesn't finish as well as other woods.

I googled basswood, and found this article about it, and its parent site, the Wood Database, both of which are interesting:

https://www.wood-database.com/basswood/

This might be the coolest site I've discovered on Hacker News in a while. Thanks for sharing!

You're welcome :)

I didn't know about that site either, the comment section is fantastic, it's full of users who both try different finishes and report back how it went

Cool, I will check that out. I only read the basswood entry so far.

We need more sites like these on the net, instead of the garbage piles that are much more common nowadays.

Thanks.

>pleasantly surprise

surprised, typo

If you ever get to that point, by all means buy the chisels. But make the mallet(s) yourself.

Interesting, why do you say that about the mallets?

Because a mallet is a nice woodworking project, can be done at any level of sophistication, from whittling a handle to a piece of firewood to "impossible" dovetail joinery and embedded lead weights. Making your own tools gives great satisfaction, both when you make it, and later when you use it. Plus, if the first one does not feel perfect, you know you can always make a better one.

>Because a mallet is a nice woodworking project, can be done at any level of sophistication

Makes sense, thanks.

>Making your own tools gives great satisfaction, both when you make it, and later when you use it.

Ha ha, true, and in the software field too. Like many others, I sometimes make small utilities for use in my own dev work.

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