Basic Relief Carving Techniques

A few simple tools, and basic technique will result in a great looking carving.

- Shea Alexander

Relief carving as a form of ornamentation is as old as woodworking itself and while at first glance it may seem intimidating almost all relief carving is made up of simple cuts arranged in a pleasing order. In fact many patterns that appear before the mass production of steel tools use less than 6 different carving tools to complete.

Tools

When people talk to me about carving (or woodworking in general for that matter) the conversation is often hijacked with questions about tools. So I will try and clear the air on that with a few general guidelines without getting in the weeds.

Sizing

First there is no universal sizing system for carving tools. Seemingly every brand and country of manufacture uses a different system. More or less they assign profiles or shapes of tools a number and then denote the width. With most manufactures being European this is normally in millimeters so you will see something like 8/12 the number 8 is the number they assigned to that curvature or profile and the number 12 is 12mm wide. For the most part all companies publish charts of their profiles so aside from the width it becomes irrelevant.

I would encourage you to remember that today's availability of hundreds of carving tool profiles is a modern convenience that can paralyze you in getting started. There was a time in history when a woodcarver had to go to the local blacksmith and commission a tool a little more curved or a little smaller. That limitation did not hobble their creativity but actually enhanced it and is why so many traditional patterns that seem so complex actually use a small handful of tools.

Sets