How to Carve Wood: A Book of Projects and Techniques

by Rick Butz

Woodcarver Richard Butz teaches chapter by chapter whittling, chip carving, wildlife carving, relief carving, lettering, and architectural carving. In How to Carve Wood , the reader learns by doing,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0918804205
• Release Date: October 1984
• Publisher: Taunton Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 0.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Very accurate and effective

A strong point which I find in this book is the ability to describe non-trivial manual tasks (e.g. sharpening a blade, or a particular cut technique) in such a way that you can immediately start trying them. The author is passionate about the activity of wood carving and is successful in giving you a deep feeling of it.

Covers a lot of ground

As a beginner, I appreciated the breadth of topics covered in the book, particularly the various styles of carving. This was my introduction to chip carving, and I think he covered it quite well. Sharpening is also covered, but I'd already bought "The Complete Guide to Sharpening" by Leonard Lee (of Lee Valley & Veritas) and found that to be a most comprehensive source of information on that topic.

Best Beginner's Book

To an experienced woodcarver this book may seem unfocused and thinly spread, but for the beginner it does exactly what it should do. The book begins with a good grounding in the tools of the craft and how to care for and sharpen each type. After that it gives you a sampler of carving styles with at least one project for each. It's guaranteed there is at least one or two chapters the reader will not care for. Even this is useful since the reader avoids launching into the craft with a project they really have little enthusiasm for, and then lose interest in wood carving all together. This book should be required reading before the beginner spends a single dime on tools, equipment, or wood. If it's not 'the' best beginner's book, it's in the top five.

A good technical guide to woodcarving

A good general book on woodcarving. This book could be better if it didn't try to be all things for all people. There are better books for beginners out there for the money and more advanced carvers probably need to buy a book concentrating on their type of carving. I found it to be a little on the technical side and would have preferred a few more patterns for each type of carving. My favorite sections were on finishes, sharpening, and the tool section. There are numerous photographs of some beautiful examples of the various types of carving. The author does show some very useful carving techniques in most of the carving styles.Sections include tools, sharpening, woods and finishes, design, whittling, chip carving, relief carving, wildlife carving, lettering, archatectural carving, and a bibliography.