oscillating wood carving tool

[H.R.Fisher]

  I am considering purchasing some kind oscillating wood carving tool to do my rough gouging. Age is beginning to take a toll on my arms and shoulders. Is anyone using this type of tool? I would be interested in hearing about it.

                                        Thanks  Henry

[Gary M]

I have a Foredom with the H.50 power chisel. It makes lots of chips in a real hurry. I use it mostly for roughing out stuff. If Stradivarius had one there would be a lot more of his instruments out there.

The downside of the power chisel is the vibration. After a long session I can still feel it for a while. (I'm getting up there too) The rotary motion of burrs and sanders is much smoother but even they can vibrate a bit, particularly the rougher burrs.

Also be prepared to deal with a sharpening issue. More wood cut in a shorter time means tools can dull faster than hand carving.

[Don Noon]

23 minutes ago, Gary M said:

I have a Foredom with the H.50 power chisel.

I bought one too.  Very noisy, tried it once and never again.  Anyone wanna buy it?

[Shunyata]

A 12 ounce carving mallet does the job quite nicely.  Saves the toll on the hands and forearms, and gives a great deal of control.  Lignum Vitae makes a nice easy to control mallet.

Need high quality steel in your gouges (and wider sharpening angle) to avoid buggering the cutting edge though. 

[HoGo]

Vibrations of such tools hurt me more than smooth albeit hard physical work. Working with good gouges and ergonomic handles AND good technique is less demanding on hands and often even more efffective than use of such machines.

Good technique is not about your hands but complete posture from your feet to your wrists. You should use your strong muscles of legs and arms to do the heavy work and wrists are barely holding the blade in correct angle to the workpiece. I've never used mallet for carving maple. I once measured time and I can rough carve inside of F-5 mandolin within 5 minutes for top and under 10 minutes in maple back (that is within 1 mm of final graduations). Outside (with body scroll) takes perhaps twice as much. I spend much more time with the fine tools to make the arching as perfect as I can.

I used duplicating carver for some of my mandolin plates but went back to handcarving as the vibrations were ugly (not to mention the noise) and as result it didn't take significantly less time to do the work and with the necessary cleanup of all the tiny chips and dust I realized that unless I'll be doing at least five pairs of plates at a time it's not worth it.

I would consider CNC more helpful in this case as it will free you from all the vibration and with good dust collection or box around the machine cleanup and noise will not be that bad.

[Mr. Bean]

I must have a tool like that somewhere, covered with a thick layer of dust!

[David Burgess]

7 hours ago, Shunyata said:

A 12 ounce carving mallet does the job quite nicely.

The impacts are also a good way to accidentally open centerjoints in the back.

3 hours ago, HoGo said:

Good technique is not about your hands but complete posture from your feet to your wrists. You should use your strong muscles of legs and arms to do the heavy work and wrists are barely holding the blade in correct angle to the workpiece.

Agreed.

OP, I have tried everything from the Foredom-type impact tool to a big gouge chucked into a pneumatic impact hammer. No joy.

[nathan slobodkin]

1 hour ago, David Burgess said:

The impacts are also a good way to accidentally open centerjoints in the back.

Agreed.

OP, I have tried everything from the Foredom-type impact tool to a big gouge chucked into a pneumatic impact hammer. No joy.

Also agree with HoGo about using your whole body to push the tool and hands for guiding it. Since I was making mostly cellos I learned to do this pretty effectively.

I was encouraged at one time to use a pantagragh router for roughing and found that it left me too close to finished to use my large tools and too far from finished to use my small tools. A 50 mm gouge with a long handle swelled at the end was accurate enough to get within a few tenths of the finished shape leaving the ridges to be removed with planes and the resulting marks removed by toothed planes and scrapers. I much preferred and was ultimately faster without the mechanical tools.

[FiddleDoug]

Any kind of oscillation or impact will be tough. This might work for you, especially since electric versions are available.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=carving+violin+chainsaw#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:6b0fc8a0,vid:X2n1W5THyGQ

[Shunyata]

Understand the concern about impacts opening a center joint.  You can never just hog away, mallet or not.  

My own technique is very light, high frequency taps and thin cuts. This method isn’t faster than doing it without a mallet, just easier.  

[Don Noon]

5 hours ago, HoGo said:

I would consider CNC more helpful in this case as it will free you from all the vibration and with good dust collection or box around the machine cleanup and noise will not be that bad.

I think that the "case" we are discussing is not a high-output professional business, and I wouldn't recommend CNC for that unless there are the skills, interest, space, and $$ available to get it up and running.  Oh, and a year of mostly downtime to dedicate to the designwork, tooling, and figuring out all of the software.

As a fellow oldster with physical issues, I would suggest for non-CNCers to make pads, handles, and extensions for the gouges so that they can be pushed with the shoulder or chest.  That's what I did pre-CNC.  And since I don't like to stand while working, I hooked my toes under some weights so the wheeled chair wouldn't roll away from the work.

With pacemaker, heart surgery, and shoulder surgery, the idea of pushing with shoulder or chest ain't so hot any more, so I'm happy to have the CNC do the heavy work, and I can leave the shop while it's working, since it gets noisy.  There's still light carving necessary, and for that I use sharp tools and slicing motions to reduce forces.

[Marty Kasprzyk]

Use shallow arch shapes so you don't have to carve away as much wood.

[Jay Higgs]

I have been able to find some nice gouges, but without the large size handles needed for body leverage.  I would appreciate some pics from those of you with the ergonomic handles that allow you to remove wood so fast.  Did you make the handles yourself, or did they come with the tool?  I just bought an axe handle that I plan to rework as a large gouge handle, and I need ideas.  Thanks in advance.  --Jay

[David Burgess]

3 hours ago, Jluthier said:

I have been able to find some nice gouges, but without the large size handles needed for body leverage.  I would appreciate some pics from those of you with the ergonomic handles that allow you to remove wood so fast.  Did you make the handles yourself, or did they come with the tool?  I just bought an axe handle that I plan to rework as a large gouge handle, and I need ideas.  Thanks in advance.  --Jay

Jay, there have been some past threads here about these types of handles. Maybe someone else will look them up and put up a link? (I'm knee-deep in repairing my clothes dryer, with parts all over the room. Gotta get it back together before I forget which part goes where.)

[Don Noon]

The handle that works best I think depends on what shape you're in and how you want to work.  For younger pros that want to work fast, probably a long-ish handle would be most comfortable for working with both hands, and a rounded end for pushing.

In my case, with my issues, I made a padded disc with a socket to fit the gouge handle end, so I could push with my shoulder or chest.  I had also made an extension to get more distance from the work, but I found it to be more troublesom than it was worth, and just worked closer to the part.

[David Burgess]

4 hours ago, Shunyata said:

Understand the concern about impacts opening a center joint.  You can never just hog away, mallet or not.  

I can hog away pretty decently using just technique, and my body. The impacts of a hammer change things drastically. Impacts are one way of starting separation of the glue joint between the ribs, and the top or back, and it is also highly effective for opening center joints.

Don's method of pushing the roughing gouge with the shoulder or chest is the same method I have used for about 50 years. High output makers need to worry about various sorts of overuse injuries, and usually come up with routines to deal with it. Low output makers are not immune.

[Mark Norfleet]

 

[HoGo]

I don't have such ergonomic handle but I use biker glove and hold firmly the end of handle against my palm and keep the whole gouge aligned with my forearm and I hold my elbow braced against my hip or at least firmly against side of my body. left hand is on the lower part of handle or on the steel to help with cutting direction or in maple it helps twisting it so the blade slices through the wood much easier.

[jezzupe]

If you don't mind maybe losing a finger if your not careful I suggest "King Arthur"   chain saw rotary heads on a grinder, I think I saw David race some guy using one in a video he posted long ago, I still think he beat the guy with his massive gouge, pumped up guns and strapping thighs, it was a real john Henry moment as I recall

They are surprisingly accurate but do take quite a bit of skill to learn how to use, and do have the potential to do damage to you and your work if you do not train yourself to use it well.

 

The best safety tip I can give is to have a piece of scrap wood to act as a stopper you can grind the blade into to stop it and never take your hands off the grinder until the blade has completely stopped.

they apparently have this now, which looks pretty cool

https://www.woodworkingshop.com/product/KX50000/?dfw_tracker=111965-4392&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIn9_c3PfS_QIVvxCtBh2sgQfsEAQYAiABEgIckvD_BwE

[Jay Higgs]

On 3/9/2023 at 10:01 AM, David Burgess said:

Maybe someone else will look them up and put up a link?

David:  I did find what I was looking for.  There are a lot of threads, some with the pics no longer available, but this one is good and shows your famous technique as well as some other nice handles.  I looked for the video of your carving contest but didn't actually find that.   I hope your dryer went back together with no leftover mystery parts.  

 

 

[Matthew_Graesch]

I would second what was said above about using gouges with a set up that allows using the whole chest.  I have often had instances in other (non-luthier) woodworking where I needed to perform some chisel/gouge work that was very taxing with just hand/arms.  I worked out a system so that I could make a longer handle on the tool and use my whole torso by bracing the tool on my sternum with padding.  That way you retain the ability to do precision work, but you can literally just lean into it and not use any arm or wrist motions.  Like I said, I haven't used it on a fiddle yet, but it has worked really well in my other woodworking pursuits.  

[violguy]

I have several large gouges equipped with indecent handles. Much more fun to use.

[David Burgess]

1 hour ago, violguy said:

I have several large gouges equipped with indecent handles. Much more fun to use.

As long as they don't incorporate either mechanical or psychic vibrators, which can easily be repurposed as substitutes for a marital relationship, I might be semi-OK with that.

[viola_license_revoked]

I've had luck with the Arbotech ball gouge and also other carving discs for speed runs. it's been pretty ok!

I'm not an Arbotech spokesperson, here's the thing, I use a cheap grinder to go with it:

https://www.arbortechtools.com/us/shop-online/power-carving/attachments-accessories/ball-gouge

Wireless ear phones or ear plugs are my friend. Chips everywhere all at once. Eye protection!!! Safety first. It feels as dangerous as it looks. I'm fully awake when using. Clamp those planks down tight!  Tops i do with regular gouge since they are soft and easy.

I did not have much luck with small reciprocating power chisels, I had a Foredom and a knockoff foredom for a while. The light duty carving handles didn't last too many builds, they made my hands numb after roughing out just a single back. I can see many potential exciting uses for the tool but personally I can't take advantage of it for rough gouging backs. Maybe I will attach a chisel to a rotary hammer a la Maestro Burgess some day and go to town with it. 

 

At one time I had a safe-t planer to take down edges. And then they stop making them and I stop using them and now they are back... It was useful but I don't use them anymore.

Pantograph carving is super cool for roughing out repetitive models, but routers are really really noisy. CNC is even cooler but I'm not the brightest and currently still trying to figure out how to 2.5/3D on Vcarve... I will give the giant shopbot at my makerspace a try someday.

[Bo Pontoppidan]

Did anyone try the Arbortech Turboplane for roughing the plates?