{"id":819,"date":"2020-10-02T13:53:03","date_gmt":"2020-10-02T10:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodiswood.com\/?p=819"},"modified":"2022-09-07T12:01:07","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T09:01:07","slug":"carving-in-the-round-for-beginners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodiswood.com\/carving-in-the-round-for-beginners\/","title":{"rendered":"Carving In The Round For Beginners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Mastering carving in the round is in every woodcarver’s dream come true. With these very realistic 3 dimensional carvings, you can get as creative as your wood carving abilities allow you to, there are no limits to how astonishing you can express yourself with carving in the round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just so that we are on the same page, here is the definition of carving in the round: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carving in the round is a style of wood carving that creates a representation of a real-life scene\/item in 3 dimensions. These types of carvings can be viewed from any direction which makes them by far the most realistic wood carvings. Examples of carving in the round are wooden statues, gnomes, and carved animals.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a lot of things that make carving in the round unique and different from other styles of wood carving that you may have tried or heard of. From the required tools to beginner projects and the first time trying it, in this article we will cover all the basics you need to know if you are new to carving in the round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How To Carve In The Round For The First Time <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Carving in the round is the most difficult way to carve. It’s definitely a good idea that you have past experience with carving before attempting carving in the round. With that said, don’t let anything stop you from trying it early out of curiosity <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have experience with relief carving this will be quite helpful for carving in the round. Ratios and measurements are not easy to get right from the first time, so relief carvers have a slight advantage as their 3D vision trained with past projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To start with you need to get a solid piece of wood<\/strong> that will fit the dimensions of your carving. This kind of wood is not easy to come by or can be pretty expensive. If you are looking for a less pricy alternative you can glue wooden boards together,<\/strong><\/em> this works surprisingly well, if done right. Check out our tutorial on how to glue boards together here<\/a><\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that you have the wood, you need to make some drawings. Don’t let that scare you if you are not the most artistic person ever, all you need is to mark the dimensions of you carving on all the 6 sides of your wooden block. To get the dimensions right you can first draw on graph paper as well as use measuring calipers or even a pointing machine if you have one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting the drawings right is very important. The way that we do it is by first getting the ratios right on graph paper and then transfer the pattern onto the wood<\/a>. There is no perfect way of doing it, but some ways are better than others, so be sure to try out the one which leads to the most accurate results for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After you have your dimensions right it’s time to get to the first stage of shaping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. The First Stage Of Shaping<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After you drew your design on the wood and have a good understanding of the proportions for your carving, it’s time to get rid of the unnecessary wood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Depending on the size of the carving there are a few ways that you can do it with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of the first stage of shaping is to remove all wood that is placed in between the outline of the carving and the edge of the wooden block. <\/strong>A universal for all sizes tool is a gouge, however, there can be easier ways to do it depending on the size of your carving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A good mindset for this stage is to imagine you want to remove enough wood to start shaping the silhouette next, but not remove enough to be able to do any detailing as this will result in a very “squared” shape of your carving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If your carving is of medium size (something the size of a big watermelon) and you have a bandsaw in your workshop you can use that to very efficiently cut around the profile leaving very little wood to manually remove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For extra-large carvings, you can use an axe to chop off some of the wood before using a gouge to further shape it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for small carvings, a gouge will be enough straight away, but be very patient as it is easy to chop off an extra bit if the carving is small.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. The Second Stage of Shaping<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The second stage of shaping when carving in the round is the most important and requires a lot of your patience<\/strong>. It is very important to emphasize the fact that it takes a long time to shape it right and rushing this part is a bad idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What you want to do now is to complete the outline of your carving. Doing this without tools will be hard, so we recommend using measuring calipers to get a better understanding of the ratios for your carving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want to use something extremely precise you can use a pointing machine. We mentioned it before in the article, it is a very good although a hard way to measure dimensions. Read more about what a pointing machine is and how to use it for your carving here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shaping the outline of the wood is not easy. It will come with practice, but here are a few tips for your first time. For this stage, you are still using a gouge and a mallet<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n