Are you a woodworker? Do you know a woodworker? There are a lot of folks who do a little woodworking but you may be surprised at how many diverse skills fall under the woodworking umbrella. Beyond basic home repair and carpentry there is an amazing variety of woodworking disciplines. You are probably familiar with cabinet makers and furniture makers, but did you know there are woodworkers who specialize in gun furniture? (The stock on a rifle or the grips on a pistol.) Some woodworkers focus on toys, or cue sticks or puzzles. Bowyers make bows (and arrows.) Luthiers make stringed instruments like guitars and violins.
Here are some of the more unusual ways woodworkers create:
- Carving – Working wood by means of hand held cutting tools (which may be powered). The works created can range from figurines to abstract art. Or the artist may use carving to embellish a wooden object such as furniture.
- Marquetry, Parquetry and Inlay – Thin pieces of veneer are cut and assembled to make pictures or patterns using the color and grain patterns of the wood to create effects. Can be used to create stand-a-lone pictures or as an inlay for furniture or floors.
- Pyrography – An unusual art form that uses hot irons or pens to burn wood and leather to various depths of brown to create pictures of wildlife, people or scenery.
- Scrolling – Using a hand or power saw with a narrow ribbon-like blade for cutting curved or irregular shapes. Scrollers produce everything from portraits, to puzzles, to clocks with intricate fretwork that you have to see to believe.
- Intarsia – Similar to putting puzzle pieces together, intarsia uses varied colors and types of wood to create pictures in wood. The pieces are typically cut on a scroll saw or band saw and then assembled to create unique, artistic effects.
- Whittling – Cutting small bits or pare shavings from a piece of wood. Whittling is typically performed with a light, small-bladed knife. “Whittling” and “carving” are related but they are different arts. Carving employs the use of chisels, gouges, and a mallet, while whittling involves only the use of a knife.
- Woodturning – The art of shaping wood on a lathe. Turners can produce items as varied as pens, bowls, table legs and balusters. Any design that is basically round lends itself to being turned.
Many woodworkers employ combinations of these disciplines in their creative process – I know an artist who likes to embellish his turnings with carving and pyrography. Another is a gun furniture maker who does chip carving on rifle stocks. There is no end to the possibilities.
I took up woodworking after college, progressing from rough carpentry, to furniture and eventually to making boxes and turned objects out of exotic hardwoods. Now I see many people coming back to woodworking after trying it earlier in life. The key is… if one of these disciplines interests you – dive in and make some sawdust!
