Boys Winter 2016: Art of Carving

The Art of Carving is a skills journey explorers can venture on for their entire lives.  Multitudes of things both practical and beautiful can be crafted from pieces of wood found in the forest or on the seashore with very basic and inexpensive tools.  The skills that accompany the art of carving serve our explorers even when their tools are not in their hands.  One has to be focused, deliberate, measured and calm when you are working with knives.  This outing is one that mentors eagerly anticipate because it is an important threshold for our boys and it is really exciting to facilitate the safe and effective use of knives with them.

The tenor of this outing is much more serious than most, and while explorers typically conduct themselves in a safe manner; Explorers Club is often a place of boisterous energy and exuberant play.  While there is always play and exuberance in our outings, the art of carving begins with a lesson on proper knife safety.  In its essence basic tool safety can be distilled down to five fundamental rules

1.     Be aware of your “Blood Circle” (Who is near you?)

2.     Be seated (we don’t walk with an open blade)

3.     Safe follow through (know where your blade is going to go)

4.     Be serious (carving and “horse play” are not compatible)

5.     Always stow your knife when you are done

Keeping thee five things in mind keeps our bodies and tools safe.  Rule number three deserves a bit more attention.  The beginning carver (which is nearly every explorer) needs to be especially vigilant about safe follow through.  The most common injuries in carving occur to the fingers and thumb of the opposite hand, so it is important to think about where you hold your work.  Injuries to legs are also common when boys carve in their laps, better to keep your elbows on your knees so that you can keep your follow through safe from your legs.

Before the mentors introduced the carving project, we had a brief show and tell about everybody’s knife.  Each explorer showed how to safely open and close their blades and showed how the blade’s locking mechanism worked or how their sheath operated.  Both mentors also showed a few carving tools beyond basic knives (small gouges & spoon knives) to help show some more specialized carving tools. 

The carving project was to create a simple two tent stakes from a wooden stick.  This is a fantastic introductory project as it teaches several fundamental carving operations and its handy to know how to fabricate a tent peg in the field if you lose, break or forget one.  Here is a link to an excellent video on YouTube done by Ray Mears of the Woodlore School in the UK.  He demonstrates how to carve the tent peg in more or less the same fashion as we taught the boys.  He is a very skillful knife user and his demonstrations are fascinating to watch.

The boys applied themselves with total focus and carefully worked through all the steps in creating the tent peg.  As mentors our primary focus was observe the boys and offer individual encouragement and suggestions to help them become more comfortable and confidant carving with their knives.  The boys worked steadily until they all had made a pair of tent pegs!  After all this crafting and deep focus lunch and a couple of rounds of spider’s web was deeply needed! 

We finished up the day with a strong closing circle and the boys offered their gratitude for a chance to learn new skills and to spend time in the forest exploring and playing! Looking around at everybody’s tent pegs it was clear that this is a group of boys off to a strong start with carving.

Our hopes as mentors for your son’s carving journey from here forward are that they take it slowly and practice carefully.  I suggest that your son learn how to sharpen his knife with an adult family member so that he can continue to carve safely.  A sharp knife is easy to control, as it requires far less effort to make cuts in wood with.  A dull knife is hazardous because it requires more force to make each cut, which make it difficult to have a safe follow through.  There are a number of sharpening devices available at places like Hardware Sales, Yeagers or REI, but a simple and very affordable way to make you cutting tools very sharp is with Wet and Dry sand paper.  A strip of 600, 1200, and 2500grit paper stuck to sections of 1x3” lumber with double sided carpet tape is a pretty economical way to make a blade very sharp.  There are a number of YouTube videos out there for those that wish to learn this skill.

Finally we wish to thank all the boys and their families for making this outing possible.  We know it can take a leap of faith to send your son into the woods with a knife and we deeply appreciate the trust you bestow upon us.  Thank you so much for supporting this work we do!