Wood grain. Working with wood grain

If you are a beginner in wood carving it is necessary to know everything about the material you work with. And in this blog we want to share with you about wood grain, working with wood grain.

1. Cut the teaching blank. The shape is not extremely important, but it should look similar to the photo. Mark the grain direction and transition points. The center dip is the negative transition point, and the right and left bumps are positive transition points. The arrow running laterally marks the direction of the grain.

2. Cut away from a positive transition point. You will be cutting across the exposed ends of the vessels and you’ll get a clean controlled cut.

3. Cut toward a positive transition point. You are cutting into the exposed ends of the vessels. The knife will attempt to take the path of least resistance. When this happens, you’ve lost control of the cut and the wood will tend to split.

4. Cut toward the negative transition point. Cutting in this direction produces a clean controlled cut. If you cut beyond the negative transition point, you risk splitting the wood.

5. Cut from the other direction toward the negative transition point. Cut from the other direction, meeting the first cut, so the waste wood will come out cleanly.

6. Cut beyond the negative transition point. As with the cut made toward the positive transition point, the tool will attempt to take the path of least resistance and go between the vessels, causing the wood to split. Any time you allow the tool to go between the vessels (the grain of the wood), you loose control of the cut.