Woodworking Adventures Blog

Life gets much easier when you have an ample supply of hooks or pegs to hang things on. Check out this easy hat rack project to get your organizing started! 

Our Woodworking Adventure takes us to Charlotte North Carolina in follow up to our previous blog announcement of scheduled demos to take place at various Woodcraft stores. 

Scott Phillips, forester, woodworker and co-host of “The American Woodshop” on PBS, joins Woodcraft in promoting tree planting on Arbor Day.

More carving instruction to finish the relief animal carvings with hair carving, finish sanding, then use two methods of painting, gouache (water colors) with our teacher Sylvia Fuchs (Paul’s wife). 

Today we attended the first day of carving school at the studio of Paul Fuchs in the Village of Hofstetten, where there is a population of 600 people. We are met by his son, Mario, also a Holzbildhauer, wood cutter/master carver.

When we last left our non-detailed, unpolished, lifeless Catalpa Green Man, he was still screwed into a jig fixture waiting to be saved!  To the rescue is Micheal Zelonis, our carving crusader ready with pfeil carving tools in hand.  Anyone hear a Batman theme coming on here!!

Relief carving, otherwise characterized as carving pictures in wood, can be both relaxing and rewarding, yielding some of the most extravagant and beautiful portraits, even for a first time carver.  With a little investigation, planning, time, patience and some sharp pfeil carving tools, you can be on your way to creating works of art that will impress not only yourself, but everyone else too! In this first part Green Man carving blog, we’ll take you through the first 4 of 8 stages in relief carving.  

In the Woodcraft & Pfeil Carving Artistry Contest, Roger Strautman from Woodburn, Indiana, earned a pfeil Swiss made Brienz Collection Boxed Carving Set for “The Shroud,” an amazingly beautiful chip-carved cross with carved wooden linen. This Shroud story was blogged previously