power to the carving

I had recently bought some pine knot because I had really liked the look of this wood so on a whim I bought some from the tree wiz. What I got was awesome but word of advice never purchase things on a whim. It became extremely evident that these are extremely hard and would be best to use power tools to carve them, best for the life of my carving tools that is. But all was not lost because I own a Dremel, if we are being honest I own three, so I have a tool that with the right bits can be utilized to carve these knots. I got a set of 4 bits for my Dremel and now I am in business, at least I have enough to get my feet wet and try my hand at this.

The day bits arrived my first impression was they are very cool. I just had to try them out and when I did wow. I love that you get the aroma of the wood while working. If you have ever cut a pine tree with a chain saw you know the aroma.  It took me a few minutes to get acclimated to the rotation aspect of using these but in the end I thought I was getting the feel for them. I found you can put some pressure and get a deep cut or put light pressure and get more of a detailed cut. I can see why people like these and why they love carving the knots in general even more now. I was advised to use two hands when carving for control, but for the first one I was holding a little piece in my hand using a garden stake to hold my Dremel. At times I would use my thumb to steady the tool and after about 40 minutes I had my first test carving done. I will flip this one over and carve it again but the top will become the bottom on the other side just to experiment some more. So for my first attempt I liked the end result and even more I liked the experience, I will always carve with my knives and basswood but I will also spend time carving pine knots as well. I bought my knots from the tree wiz from his Etsy page, The Tree Wizard Shop, check him out,

 as always happy trails

and

Carpe diem 4 carving