Carving bench / workshop tools

J

JLS

New member
Aspiring carver here with a question I'm sure will be as diverse as the group;

What tools are in on or around your workbench that you use for carving decoys?

Anything from powered units and bits to knives, sookeshaves, sanding, burning, painting equipment, carving benches, dust collection.

What did you get that you don't use and feel was unnecessary and what had you wished you'd done or gotten sooner?

Trying to get a handle on affordable essentials.

Thanks everyone.
 
do you have any idea what you are interested in making. I'm guessing decoys, but that wasn't the case in my career. I started carving for a living in 1981, quite a bit of it was waterfowl themed, but very rarely a decoy of any kind, never a working decoy until 22 years ago. I went to a few shows many decades ago and was asked several times if I used a Foredom, I had no idea what that was. We lived on a farm back in those days, no real options to find things like carving tools, I had no mentors and did a lot of my carving with a couple of chisels and some small carving knives. Essentials would probably start with a mentor, it's hard to say since we don't know your name or location.

These days with the internet tools are pretty easy to find, lots of youtube videos. Deciding on traditional decoy making or more outside the box. Decorative or functional, or both. I guess what I'm saying is we need more information.
 
my first carvings were ducks, but not decoys, miniature flying birds. The wingspans were about 10 inches and I could carve them with exacto knives and eventually graduated up to a dremel with a cable hand piece. Now I have three Foredoms and a variety of carving and sanding tips.

I rarely carve by hand anymore, but it can be expensive to start up. I never had a Foredom the first 10 years, so you can Iive without it. Various wood types are important choices depending on what you are wanting to do. I like basswood for carving animals like pronghorn, deer, moose and caribou and run the grain lengthways in the legs as much as possible, it's less likely to split than other wood. I have mixed feelings about tupelo after getting a really bad board that was so hard not even my kutzalls wanted to deal with it. I love sugar pine for fish carvings. The nice thing about any rotary file is that it cares not about wood grain when it comes to decoratives and a wood burner is a good tool to clean up the fuzzies. It's extremely rare that I pick up a piece of sandpaper, opting for sanding cones on a mandrel in the rotary file.

Probably the most important tool is a respirator, not a M95, which do little to nothing, but a cartridge style mask, that's what you want.
 
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I have been carving since the 70's. One tool I've always used is a good band saw and various tooth profile blades. Cutting out the basic bird is so much easier. From there I have a few draw knives and a large assortment of rasps and files. Once I have the basic shape I use several Dremel (each with flex shafts and tipped with various size sanding drums).
That is my style. But consider where to start. How do you plan on cutting out the basic shape (saw?). How will you do the basic shaping (power or hand tools)?
 
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For reference I carve gunning birds vs decorative.
Foredom power carver (like)
Geswein Micro motor … absolutely yes. Wish I had bought this sooner
Grizzly band saw … find some other brand but a band saw needed
Jet dust collector … should have bought sooner
WEN air purifier unit . .. yes
Building myself a nice bench … should have done sooner (in process)
Fancy cushioned office chair … great purchase

Various hand tools (spoke shaves, draw knives , rasps and files ..) has opened up a new area of interest and produces much much less mess and less noise … this is opening a new chapter to which I am eagerly exploring and trying to reduce my handicap of relying on power tools… different level of satisfaction and relaxation and once you get past the learning curve and actually is not that much slower .


Wood burner …. As of right now in my journey wasted money
 
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Don Mintz said:
my first carvings were ducks, but not decoys, miniature flying birds. The wingspans were about 10 inches and I could carve them with exacto knives and eventually graduated up to a dremel with a cable hand piece. Now I have three Foredoms and a variety of carving and sanding tips.

I rarely carve by hand anymore, but it can be expensive to start up. I never had a Foredom the first 10 years, so you can Iive without it. Various wood types are important choices depending on what you are wanting to do. I like basswood for carving animals like pronghorn, deer, moose and caribou and run the grain lengthways in the legs as much as possible, it's less likely to split than other wood. I have mixed feelings about tupelo after getting a really bad board that was so hard not even my kutzalls wanted to deal with it. I love sugar pine for fish carvings. The nice thing about any rotary file is that it cares not about wood grain when it comes to decoratives and a wood burner is a good tool to clean up the fuzzies. It's extremely rare that I pick up a piece of sandpaper, opting for sanding cones on a mandrel in the rotary file.

Probably the most important tool is a respirator, not a M95, which do little to nothing, but a cartridge style mask, that's what you want.
Click to expand...
Awesome advice, thank you very much
 
Ronald Bock said:
I have been carving since the 70's. One tool I've always used is a good band saw and various tooth profile blades. Cutting out the basic bird is so much easier. From there I have a few draw knives and a large assortment of rasps and files. Once I have the basic shape I use several Dremel (each with flex shafts and tipped with various size sanding drums).
That is my style. But consider where to start. How do you plan on cutting out the basic shape (saw?). How will you do the basic shaping (power or hand tools)?
Click to expand...
Regarding the bandsaw, recommended TPI for the blade or just a typical stock blade will work? Thank you.
 
D. Hinton said:
For reference I carve gunning birds vs decorative.
Foredom power carver (like)
Geswein Micro motor … absolutely yes. Wish I had bought this sooner
Grizzly band saw … find some other brand but a band saw needed
Jet dust collector … should have bought sooner
WEN air purifier unit . .. yes
Building myself a nice bench … should have done sooner (in process)
Fancy cushioned office chair … great purchase

Various hand tools (spoke shaves, draw knives , rasps and files ..) has opened up a new area of interest and produces much much less mess and less noise … this is opening a new chapter to which I am eagerly exploring and trying to reduce my handicap of relying on power tools… different level of satisfaction and relaxation and once you get past the learning curve and actually is not that much slower .


Wood burner …. As of right now in my journey wasted money
Click to expand...
I really appreciate your insight regarding equipment, especially the wood burner, saved me a bit of $$ early on.
 
D. Hinton said:
For reference I carve gunning birds vs decorative.
Foredom power carver (like)
Geswein Micro motor … absolutely yes. Wish I had bought this sooner
Grizzly band saw … find some other brand but a band saw needed
Jet dust collector … should have bought sooner
WEN air purifier unit . .. yes
Building myself a nice bench … should have done sooner (in process)
Fancy cushioned office chair … great purchase

Various hand tools (spoke shaves, draw knives , rasps and files ..) has opened up a new area of interest and produces much much less mess and less noise … this is opening a new chapter to which I am eagerly exploring and trying to reduce my handicap of relying on power tools… different level of satisfaction and relaxation and once you get past the learning curve and actually is not that much slower .


Wood burner …. As of right now in my journey wasted money
Click to expand...
Awesome and thank you. Just wanted to ask specifics regarding your dust collection and WEN air purifier. I have a small, unheated and cluttered shop, so working in the winter is really tough right now.

Also regarding the spoke shaves, draw knives, rasps and files - any recommended sizes or brands? These are tools which I feel I will eventually need as decoy carving is new but woodworking isn't.

Also having a difficult time sourcing wood to begin trying this.
 
Would anyone have any recommendations for sizes and types of carving bits commonly used in decoy carving? I know there are a million types out there from diamond, carbide, kutzall, saburr, ball, cone, inverted, cone, disc, flame and everything in between.

Just looking to obtain a few commonly used wood carving bits which will get me off to a good start carving. I've obtained a unit with a wide range of bits inclduing 1/4, 1/8" is that helps at all/
 
JLS said:
Awesome and thank you. Just wanted to ask specifics regarding your dust collection and WEN air purifier. I have a small, unheated and cluttered shop, so working in the winter is really tough right now.

Also regarding the spoke shaves, draw knives, rasps and files - any recommended sizes or brands? These are tools which I feel I will eventually need as decoy carving is new but woodworking isn't.

Also having a difficult time sourcing wood to begin trying this.
Click to expand...

I have a small cluttered shop as well currently down in the basement.

The WEN unit is nice to have on at the same time as the Jet main collector.
I purchased it on sale cheap figuring why not and it actually pics up a surprising amount of dust floating in the air . It’s small and light enough I have it hanging from the ceiling . On the opposite side of side of the shop as the dust collector

One might be able to argue I should have put on the same side / near to minimize travel of dust particles … but at the time I was rationing I would be able “cover “ the entire area .. I may have to revisit this now.

The Jet unit is about the size of a band saw 6 foot ish tall and about 3.5 ft square and sits in the back corner and I have tubing directly off the back of the band saw and a separate tube to collect from the foredom.

I have spoke shaves from 51 Bravo, Dave’s shaves and our own @PatrickMcCarthy on here. Not sure if he is still making them. But I legitimately prefer his over any of the others I have purchased.

My draw knife is about 100 years old… it was my grandfathers .. I just happened to find it in one of our old barns laying around.

As far as rasps Lee valley has a good selection and I have been happy with my purchases. There may be better but I am none the wiser .

I purchase my gouges from local woodcraft box store -> pfeil

I have also found that those magnetic tool strips are a quick and easy way to make me keep my stuff organized
 
JLS said:
Also regarding the spoke shaves, draw knives, rasps and files - any recommended sizes or brands? These are tools which I feel I will eventually need as decoy carving is new but woodworking isn't.

Also having a difficult time sourcing wood to begin trying this.
Click to expand...
Keep an eye on hyperkitten.com for drawknives and spokeshaves and the like, if you prefer older hand tools (as I do). Josh runs a good shop and generally points out the difference between "collectors" and good "users", and has fair prices I think. Unfortunately most files these days are poorly made and go bad quickly - Bahco files (made in Portugal) are still very good quality. You may want small rasps, but for bigger projects I'd recommend a Shinto rasp. Cheap, both aggressive and fine sides, and works really well. I've used mine a lot on my boat project and will definitely buy another when/if it ever goes kaput.

As for sourcing wood, join woodbarter.com. A great resource for small woodworkers - access to all kinds of different woods plus some really talented woodworkers who love to help others.
 
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Meant to add - if you're going with power tools, dust collection is a must in my opinion. A major advantage to hand tools is MUCH less need for dust collection. One of my goals over the next couple of years is to eliminate as many power tools as I can - ideally will end up with just my bandsaw, lathe, and small mill.

For dust collection, get the best you can afford if you're going with power tools. I have an Oneida Supercell and it does a really nice job. Expensive, but I saved a lot not needing to go with metal ducting to get good airflow. Instead of lots of gates, I ran 1 line to a distribution gate I made (as I recall, based on the Katz Moses version) - with that I'm effectively getting full benefit of a single line on whichever tool I'm using. I also run a RabbitAir air purifier and have been EXTREMELY impressed. I change the filter set annually (about $100), and it has made a huge difference in air quality. And there is next to no fine sawdust layer settled in my garage shop any longer.
 
Lots of good stuff already mentioned, I’ll add my 2 cents.

Also check out Tom Christie on YouTube. Lots of helpful videos.

I power carve cork/wood.

Bandsaw, 14 inch with riser block.
Blades are 1/4 inch 4 or 6 TPI. Timberwolf’s seems to last longer for me, but I touch mine up with a dremel when they get dull anyway.

I added a cheap WEN drill press this year, makes it nice to get straight/even eye hole on each side.

Dust Collection is a must - I have a 2hp Jet that I added the Oneida cyclone to.

Foredom or similar flex shaft tool
I like the Saburr Tooth yellow bits (fine) the best as they are the most forgiving.
3/4 ball nose
1/4 ball nose
3/4 cylinder

I also use a 1/8 inch diamond cylinder for cutting in the bill.

Various size counter sinks drill bits for cutting glass eye holes.

I rasp my bodies to final shape after using the Foredom.

Good flexible sandpaper in various grits.

I think that covers it for me.
 
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HenryHawthorne said:
Keep an eye on hyperkitten.com for drawknives and spokeshaves and the like, if you prefer older hand tools (as I do). Josh runs a good shop and generally points out the difference between "collectors" and good "users", and has fair prices I think. Unfortunately most files these days are poorly made and go bad quickly - Bahco files (made in Portugal) are still very good quality. You may want small rasps, but for bigger projects I'd recommend a Shinto rasp. Cheap, both aggressive and fine sides, and works really well. I've used mine a lot on my boat project and will definitely buy another when/if it ever goes kaput.

As for sourcing wood, join woodbarter.com. A great resource for small woodworkers - access to all kinds of different woods plus some really talented woodworkers who love to help others.
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Cannot thank you enough for your help
 
Something else you might want to think about is what to wear in the shop. For pants I have stretchy sweatpants and a hooded fly fishing shirt. They are polyester 86% 14% spandex. I can pull them off easily over my shoes or respirator and keep the dust in the shop and not get the wife riled up with the dust in the house. I probably have a dozen fly fishing shirts and they are ideal for the task. The fly fishing shirts work well when it's hot too, I just soak them down and put them over my t-shirt.
 
Cody Foster said:
Lots of good stuff already mentioned, I’ll add my 2 cents.

Also check out Tom Christie on YouTube. Lots of helpful videos.

I power carve cork/wood.

Bandsaw, 14 inch with riser block.
Blades are 1/4 inch 4 or 6 TPI. Timberwolf’s seems to last longer for me, but I touch mine up with a dremel when they get dull anyway.

I added a cheap WEN drill press this year, makes it nice to get straight/even eye hole on each side.

Dust Collection is a must - I have a 2hp Jet that I added the Oneida cyclone to.

Foredom or similar flex shaft tool
I like the Saburr Tooth yellow bits (fine) the best as they are the most forgiving.
3/4 ball nose
1/4 ball nose
3/4 cylinder

I also use a 1/8 inch diamond cylinder for cutting in the bill.

Various size counter sinks drill bits for cutting glass eye holes.

I rasp my bodies to final shape after using the Foredom.

Good flexible sandpaper in various grits.

I think that covers it for me.
Click to expand...
Thank you!
 
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