Culture
Carving and Whittling with Brian Carver
In this episode of the Full Craft Revital Podcast, host Brian Carver discusses the art of carving and whittling, sharing insights from his experiences and tips for beginners. The conversation explores...
Carving and Whittling with Brian Carver
Culture •
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Interactive Transcript
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Good morning, welcome back to the Full Craft Revital Podcast.
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Once again, talking about traditional skills and crafts and things to learn and do and try
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and make.
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This week I'm chatting with Brian from CarvingIsFun.com and the Carving Is Fun YouTube channel.
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We're talking about carving and whittling and kind of a little bit of his experience, his thoughts,
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suggestions for other people interested in getting into carving, things like that.
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Yeah, looking forward to a couple of projects over the next little bit. I just wrapped up
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working on a knife sheath actually. I was just putting a finish on it this evening.
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I spent the last couple of evenings after I put the kids down to bed,
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sewing leather and things like that. It's actually been quite a while since I've made a sheath.
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Ironically enough, it was for the second knife I ever made. When was that back in 2014?
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So I've had this knife now for eight years and never made a sheath for it, which is
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kind of surprising and makes me wonder what I was doing all this time. I mean, I did kind of have
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a temporary sheath for a little while there, but it's kind of shocking to not have a sheath for a knife
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after eight years. Anyways, that's what I've been working on this week. I hope you guys have been
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up to something interesting as well. Working with your hands a little. How's that? I'm going on.
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Love to hear about it. Love to see pictures or something like that if you want to share.
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But that said, this week, like I said, I was chatting with Brian. We're talking about carving and
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whittling. It was an interesting episode for me because I've always been around knives. I've had a knife
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since I was, I think my dad gave me my first knife when I was five. The vast, vast majority of the
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time I have one in my pocket. I've always kind of considered whittling to be an interesting art
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form. I don't know that I would necessarily consider art. It's more like a past time, an interesting
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past time because the way I view whittling as that's something you did either to past time when
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you needed to wait for something. And that's something we're totally out of touch with in today's
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society is the concept of having to wait. We're in a rush for everything. And even when we do have to
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sit and wait for a moment, most of the time it's just a whip out the cell phone and look at social media
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or browse the internet. But more, I would say whittling kind of went along in my mind with the whole
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lights out at the end of the day. And you know, you're maybe you can sit around the fire and tell
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a story and it would one something while you do that. Maybe a completely wrong view of whittling,
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but that's kind of always how I viewed it. And I've never really tried to whittle or carve 3D
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objects. I told you I spend quite a bit of time in the or I kind of come from a background of
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primitive skills and wilderness survival. So I spent plenty of time, you know, working on friction
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fire sets and carving out laddles and, you know, random things like that. But I guess I never really
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considered that whittling. I don't know why. I guess I view whittling more as an attempt to turn out a
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3D project maybe. I don't know, I'm kind of curious. What do you guys think of when you think of
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whittling? What is whittling? But anyways, I guess I'm talking with Brian about carving and whittling.
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And yeah, links to anything mentioned. Any resources, Brian's YouTube channel, his website,
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things like that will be found over at fullcraftrevivel.com forward slash 38. And with that said, let's
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go ahead and jump into the episode. I started off asking Brian about what the difference between
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carving and whittling was and how he viewed himself and what he did.
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And definitely a carver. I mean, the primary difference between whittling and carving is whittling,
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you are just using nothing but a knife. That's it. That's your only tool. It's simple. It's straight
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to the point. But carving, you're going to be using a multitude of tools, whether it be gouges,
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chisels, even like power carvers, which is like a dremel. I'm going to do like that. So
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carving is the broad topic, but whittling is the focus. It's like how we have other things like
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chip carving or relief carving or even power carving in general as well. So those are focuses
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and carving as a whole is all encompassing. Okay. So whittling is kind of a discipline within
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carving in general. Yep. Okay. And to me, it's the simplest of them all. So it's like most people
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have a knife. I have four of them on me. So you're going to have a knife regardless.
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And it's what the where most people start to like with me and scouts too is like you start off
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with the knife. You picked up a stick. Probably just put a point on it. But some people start getting
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creative and making little designs. So it's the simplest and most easily obtainable.
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Which is primarily what the whole brand carving is fun is about because I want people to get into it.
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Start at the simplest and most basic. I would also say I have a lot of experience
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whittling random points onto sticks. But I wouldn't say I ever really took it much beyond that.
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I've gotten into spoon carving a little bit lately. I got a hook knife for Christmas last year and
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have a number of spoons now laying around the house. But I do too. It's fun.
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As I whittling, when did you take the leap from just scraping the bark off of sticks or sharpening
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them into a point or something like that? When do you start taking carving a little more seriously
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or whittling? Well, even as a kid, I always had the mindset of what if can I? And you know, just like
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I made instead of just making a point on a stick, I made a four point traps where it's like a
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shape like number four. So traps like that, wondered if I can make a fish hook, make a hammer,
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make something like a fork or anything like that. I forgot my fork. I made a fork.
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Yeah, it's stuff like that. It's like a lot of it come out of necessity or pure curiosity.
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And that's really worth it starts off as me wondering what I can do. Or if I see something
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quote unquote hidden inside of a piece of wood, then I'll see if I can bring it out.
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That's some more interesting side to me because yeah, I understand also the whole,
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you know, I forgot a fork. I'm going to whittle one. That's very much up my alley, but I don't
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necessarily feel like I look at blocks of wood and I see anything within them. Maybe I just don't
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have an artistic eye. I don't know if I can't have an artistic eye because my wife, she's a professional
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graphic artist. She cannot do what I do. Let's say let's put it this way. My wife asked me one time,
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it was a, it was a mental exercise to see how you render stuff in your mind for you. Think
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of an apple in your mind and just like close your eyes and think about it. And most people will see
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just like a picture of an apple, like someone drew an apple or something like that, the typical round
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apple. Other people will start seeing a 3D image. I see it as a rendered 3D thing that's
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spinning around in my head. Like I can see it moving at all angles and it's not really interesting.
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Round apple. It has the imperfections in it and whatnot. So that's kind of how I see it. And then
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I can sometimes see that in the wood, but not all the time. Sometimes I have to fiddle with it.
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And then I have to worry about the grain structure of the wood. If there's imperfections in the wood,
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especially with stone, you have to get flexible and creative sometimes.
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You say most people just imagine the like the image, the outline of an apple or something like that.
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I immediately jump to looking at an apple on a tree. So I see an apple on the branch sitting
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there when you say an envision an apple. Yeah. People will think multiple things different backgrounds.
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Like for me, it's floating in space. Fasting and you have you always envision things that way?
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Usually. I mean, as a kid, I've always liked to build things. I was always on. Even my job now,
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it involves me fixing and building a lot of stuff. So I like it. I don't know if that's an
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nice me. This is having an object in my hand or envisioning something to be made. And then I go
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to make it. Like even I've made my own products before for other stuff and made them in 3D
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rendering programs. I knew what I wanted to make and I just put it together.
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I need to adjust how I'm looking at a stick next time I pick up a stick to try and figure out
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what's in it to carve then. Infinite possibilities. Infinite possibilities and it'll probably still
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let it be in a point. When did you pick up stone carving? I think that was about six to eight years
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ago somewhere around there. It started off as soapstone. Again, it was one of those what ifs.
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Can I do this? So I went and grabbed a bunch of soapstone from online. I found a place that
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sold cutoffs. So I got a lot of random shapes, which was perfect for me mostly because it was
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cheap too. And I got a bunch of different colors. And then I got a Dremel and just started
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making stuff. I don't know how I was really explained. I've made a lot of things. I have a couple
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of them on my gallery on my website. Just the ones I actually had had taken pictures of before
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I gave them way to people. That's what ends up happening is I make something that's like, okay,
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here you have a thing now. That was fun. Now what do I do with it? Yeah, that ends up happening
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that way. I've made a lot of stuff for the out of stone and I'm always amazed like the colors
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that come out of it because you don't know what you're going to get. With wood, you know it's like,
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okay, you got a nice color piece of wood. Sometimes you get the ones with more of a
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coloration pattern in it, but the stone, you really have no idea what you're going to get
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for good or ill. Like you might have a spot that's they'll just fall off and I've lost
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like animal legs before. It's like, okay, it's done and then just falls off.
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So, it's a fun journey making stuff out of stone. Yeah, definitely worth trying, but do it outside.
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Is soapstone still primarily what you carve or are there other stones that you can work with?
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I really like soapstone because it's easy to work with. If I'm going to quick fast project with
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lots of color soapstone all day long. Yeah, but if I want something that I can add more detail to
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it looks more like, I guess you can say it looks more like glass or something like that,
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alabaster. It's a bit harder of a stone, but it also has this glass like quality where it's
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if you sand it smooth, it looks super nice, somewhat translucent in some cases and sometimes
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you flick the bottom of it has a little nice ping to it. So it's it's really nice. And then I just
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recently picked up some I think as Minnesota pipe stone. It's red. I was going to do a multimedia
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and project with that one with a like a red cat mushroom or red mushroom top on that I was going
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to do wood on the bottom for the base and the the gills on the inside. Again, I don't want to see if
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I can do it. I don't know if I can, but it's fun. Yeah, that sounds fun. I've never done any stone
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carving. That's a whole new medium that I might have to look into and play with at some point.
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I mean, it is fun. I'll definitely you can do it with a regular Dremel, but get the ones with the
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the extension like the like the extended cord so you don't just use the Dremel itself because
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you will burn through them because it does get into the Dremel. I've been till about four or five of
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them. So it you definitely want the extension on there because that will save you a lot of money
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and heartache, but now I upgraded to a nicer rotary tool instead of the Dremel brand. So we'll see
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how that goes. Now when you when you mentioned that soapstone is kind of like the really easy just
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soft easy to shape go to stone. I notice you use basswood and a lot of your videos is basswood
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kind of like the wood version of soapstone that the equivalent to that would probably be more like
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a balsa wood because it's it's more spongy, but you can cut it with a dollar knife.
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Basswood is like that beautiful balance between easy to carve, but yet hard enough that you can add
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details to. And if you drop it, you don't deform it kind of do. So it holds a good
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good detail in there if you add small intricate patterns and it's got a nice even wood grain. So
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it's uniform on like pine which sometimes moves all over the place and it's consistent. So
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you start when you're cutting into one side it's going to be the same when you're cutting into
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the other side. It's just it's great for learning on great for getting started on. Most people
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use it anyways. So it's it's the preferred one for most carvers. Yeah. Do you do very much with
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other woods? Yeah. I like these butternut. It's very much the same same hardness as a basswood,
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but it has a really nice coloration to it. The grain structure is a little bit thicker so it
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sometimes splits on me a little bit more, but learn to work with the wood grain should be fine.
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Some of the other ones I've been doing primarily with the spoons, I cherry and walnut. You can
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I think it's emperous. Emperous wood I was going to make a turtle out of it's like half a log.
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I see it every even herd of emperous wood. Is that something native to Florida or is that something
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you had to buy? My uncle actually grabbed that somewhere. He's like here you have this. So he does a
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lot of woodworking not necessarily wood carving like so he has access to a lot of exotic woods.
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Yeah. So it's one of those things like I just want to try it. See what happens. When you say it's
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like half a log you're going to make a turtle out of it. How big is this? Are you thinking like a turtle
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like eight inches or are you thinking like a turtle? It's a big log. Go for turtle size.
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We see them all over here in Florida anyway. So I got good references.
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I think I have a model. Yeah. What kind of on that note? What is the largest thing you've ever
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carved or little? Largest thing. I actually don't know.
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I've made a lot of things. Some of them I would consider is it a carving or is it just me messing around?
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Kind of deal. The most complete one I made was an English bulldog. I think that one was about
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six inches by four inches tall. It was in like a little pay full position. I made that one out of
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soapstone. That's still a pretty I mean six inches. That's still a pretty decent size dog.
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It was pretty good. Funny enough too. That one also soapstone is one of those things where it can
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it can take heat and that carving the house cop fire that that house was actually in or that carving
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was in and it survived. The back end is hurt. How cool. I had some extra stone that looked the same
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and I just I repaired it and you got a second life out of it which is great. That's awesome.
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Not many people would have that story. Their dogs survived the house fire. Went through it and
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came out the other end. It makes sense. So using smaller things you can hold in your hand because that's
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generally what I think of when I think of Whittling. I think of you know, traditionally you'd be sitting
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around the fireplace in the winter when everything got dark at four in the afternoon and have something to
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keep your hands busy. So that's kind of what I think of. Yeah. I mean it's good just when this
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pick up and go kind of deals. Even at work when I'm waiting for just at lunch or something I'm
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feeling a little bit bored. I'll just pick up a stick and start making something or I'll bring
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wood. I have several blocks of best wood at work that I just grab if I'm feeling bored.
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Need a stress relief? Yeah. How does your work handle wood chavings?
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I do it outside. We have a bench. It's mulch there. I can go there.
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Fits right in. Yeah. You said, um, bass wood sounds like it's very common these days but most people
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aren't going to have access to bass wood. What sort of characteristics would you suggest looking
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for and what is it mostly just look for something that's soft? Yes and no. I mean bass wood is
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primarily located here in the United States. Other people like especially those on my YouTube
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channel saying we don't have bass wood out here in Europe. They're correct. Yeah.
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Plus bass wood does go by other names. I think Lyndon Wood up in Canada and Lime Wood is an
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equivalent in Europe. But basically there is a hardness level. A jankah hardness test which is
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like how dense a piece of wood is, which I think the jankah hardness level for bass wood is
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410 pounds per square inch or something like that. Which is, it's pretty relatively soft. The
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means you can you can dent it with your fingernail and whatnot. But other than that, soft enough wood
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and fine uniform wood grain is what you kind of want to look for too because that prevents it from
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the woods flitting in the wrong way. It's like if the grain structure decides to change directions
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on you, that's not a surprise and you lose half of your carving. Also having it's like a lot of
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people like it the lighter color because then you can paint it or you can stain it the way you want
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and it's more of a like a blank canvas for the final touches on it. That makes sense. Yeah. So
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usually that's what I look for most other people look for from my understanding.
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From your experience have you ever had any woods that you tried that just
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did not work? I purposely went and tried purple heartwood which is insanely hard and
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for your dense. It's got a lot of silken I think too so it will dull your blades very fast.
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It's beautiful wood especially when you get the nice purple color out of it and you seal it.
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It stays that color for a while and it looks absolutely gorgeous but
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I've got a bunch of it sitting on the shed right now for knife handles.
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Yeah, that's I love it but I don't love working with it.
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One of my favorite woods I used to live in Utah. I told you I went to Utah State.
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One of my favorite woods in that general area is mountain mahogany and that had a jank of hardness
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of I think 3900. Gorgeous gorgeous kind of reddish brown color and you get some
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modeled kind of white that goes through it sometimes. Really difficult to work with and really
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difficult to find a piece that wasn't cracked or cracking when you cut it open it would get
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a lot of drying cracks but really really gorgeous and I made a few things out of it just
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just because it was so pretty. Yeah, I love mahogany. I'm definitely never going to work with it with
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what I'm doing. I don't have the patience. Do you end up buying your wood mostly?
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Some of it if I want something neat I'll go to my uncle and he just ends up having a scrap.
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Bunch of off cuts. Yeah and if I want what I want for a project like I just bought some
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some walnut wood which I'm going to turn into a walnut and hollow it out in the middle
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which is another project I have in mind. I'll go and buy it. The wood around here like in the
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like out in the woods sometimes is the hitter miss a lot of times since Florida so moist
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they're already decomposing. Yeah, that makes sense. I'll start going on the next
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time I hit this rotted spot like right in the middle where I wanted it. Then I was like well
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I guess I didn't want to make a fish anyway so. Do your projects turn into something else on
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a fairly regular basis? Not as much as they used to. I imagine that happens really frequently as a
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big enter. Oh, well and I believe it's a thing of confidence and striving for perfection. That's
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blunt of me saying but you have to get over it. Yeah and I ain't going to happen.
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Usually doesn't when you're working with natural materials there's usually something that
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interferes with perfectionism. Oh definitely. Especially if you're using like
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wet wood where you just freshly cut it and you have to let it dry before you use it. It's
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going to split on you if you're unlucky. So all the work you put in and you got a huge crack in
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the middle of it now. It happens. And I know for a lot of people that's demotivational so it's
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they'll throw a lot of people off. So that's why I usually have people like even on my channel
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like I promote using dried wood and I show myself using it. It's more consistent I should say.
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It's more approachable for a beginner. Yeah. Oh yeah. Plus it's easy accessible.
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Especially when you're working small projects like you show when you only need a piece it's
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a couple inches long. Those are really easy to come by. Yeah. That's the point. That's the point
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entirely. I was trying to make the channel a very beginner friendly. Yeah.
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On that note if you're making a very beginner friendly I imagine you also get a lot of feedback from
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from listeners. What are some of the like big mistakes that you hear frequently from people?
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They don't use a they don't use a slicer resistant glove or any sort of protective glove.
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Many many times I hear I started and I cut my finger or I cut my hand and I need stitches.
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That's also why you see me wearing a slicer resistant glove on the channel too because I want
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people to know you can use them. The air is good to have. Because it's sometimes even I lose track
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where my fingers are. Like I'm really into something like well now I hit my finger. Well now I got
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a stop but I banded on that. Get some super glue. I'll be fine. Yeah I can imagine that would happen
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frequently. I cut myself frequently even I'm not trying to make a 3D object out of wood. So.
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Yeah. I mean my knives are ridiculously sharp too so you just barely touch yourself. You're
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going to get cut. Yeah. It'll cut deep and clean but if you have a slicer resistant glove they'll
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prevent it from being deep but still you might still get cut. It's just not going to be as bad.
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I've never worn a slicer resistant glove before I might have to look into that and just look at
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what's out there because I've never even considered that as a possibility. I didn't really ever think
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about it. So. I mean most people don't like it's one of those things like okay I just won't cut
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myself and everyone's going to cut themselves. I know there's some people that say yeah my grandfather
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never cut themselves and I was like great I do. I know myself. It's maybe after you have 70 years
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experience you won't be but at this point. Yeah sure. I mean there's also that person is very
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focused on that one talent. I like to do a lot of different things so my skills that does not
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an expertise is more or less I am very proficient and not mastered it yet so I probably won't
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master it. That's just my personality. I'm like one of those jack of all trades where I do
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everything I want. Yeah. I often joke with people that I can do everything from kick,
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cook you a nice meal to overhaul your engine. So it's I do a lot of different stuff.
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It's a good range to have. Oh yeah. Yeah. Any other like tips or things you notice beginners
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doing that we should as I think about whittling if I start taking whittling more seriously and try
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and carve 3D objects or something like that like any tips for someone who has background using a knife
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but not necessarily seriously whittling. Yeah. Your perception of sharp is not sharp enough.
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That's that's the one of the other bigger faults that people have like when you get a new knife
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from the manufacturer it's quote unquote sharp but it's not sharp enough. You will notice the
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difference after you take that blade to a viner stone and then actually hone it sharp on a straw.
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To me it's night and day. Yeah. You can see a cleaner cut like the regular manufacturer edge you
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you'll see like a fuzzy cut going along where it's kind of dull but if you cut with a very sharp
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knife it's nice flat shiny and clean and it also just it glides right through a little bit better.
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You can add better details without like scraping the wood you're actually just cutting it.
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Yeah. That's one of the things that most people don't realize especially when they get those cheap
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knockoff wood carving sets from China and whatnot like some of them are good. The vast majority
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is not notoriously bad. notoriously bad very very bad. But yeah that one's the one that
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people mess up on so just like learn to sharpen and keep your knives honed up
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properly. Another one I see a lot is like not all knives are made equally.
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Some have a harder steel than others. You can whittle with this whist army knife.
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Their steel is consistent across all their other tools but it's still a little bit on the softer
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side. You just have to keep it sharp but that's why the knives I use on my channel are they are
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specialized. They're a proper length that I'm comfortable with which is usually around an
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inch and three three fours. It's long enough I can get good slice off but small enough I can add
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details. Yeah we get a really long blade you lose control of the tip.
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So but also it's one of those ones where you gotta use different knives to figure out where you
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were you're at. You know what you're most comfortable with because different knives have
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different fairies from person to person. Yep and different hands like me I have big mitts
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so if I give the knives I'm comfortable with to one of my friends who have really small hands
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she may be like this is uncomfortable. So I have other knives that are smaller handle and they
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find that more comfortable which I can't stand because it makes my hand cramp up. So it's one of
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the things you have to find the right one for the right person. Two things come for that. First can we
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just like ballpark what's your when you say you sharpen to a finer stone when you're sharp
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putting your knives what sort of grit do you take them to? Well I'll go through the quick steps.
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Like if I get a brand new knife that is not sharpened properly like it's just one
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like off the shelf like say my my leather man. Let's see which one do I have on right now.
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Yeah this one's my skillet tool so it's one with a 154 cm steel on it which is a nice harder
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steel. It does not come with a sharp blade that I like so I'll take it to a 600 grit stone
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to repro file it. Yeah I'll take it to a thousand to refine it on then a 2000 further pre-hone it
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and I'll take it to my leather strap and that's usually has between a 3000 to 6000 grit
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honing compound on there. Yeah so then that's where I refine it and hone it. I personally don't
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think you need anything more than that. If you wanted it sharpened off that I'll cut you when
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it looks at it. Yeah sure go ahead but I mean for wood carving you're going to dull it relatively
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quickly so just once you get it to that point though you can maintain it with a leather strap but
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you don't need to take it to a stone again especially if you go and hone it every 20-30 minutes
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you should be fine. Is that how frequently you're touching up your blades? Yes.
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Okay I like my cut smooth. Once I start seeing little streaks of lines of lighter fuzziness
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and the glossy cuts then I immediately take it to my strap. That's just me personally.
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My wife says I like sharpening my knives more than I like using them so
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it might seem like if you have four knives on you and you have to touch them up whenever you
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start working on every 20 minutes or so that yeah you could spend a decent amount of time
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touching up your blades. Oh yeah and then like if you're going to get like a woodline knife
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like let's just say like popular beginner brands are flex cut and beaver craft.
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You can just those ones you can mostly maintain with just a leather strap right out of the box
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unless they're damaged. That's the completely different story but then I take it to like a
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thousand grit stone and work my way back up. Yeah but if you get a high quality
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whittling knife right from the beginning flex cut beaver crafter are good and honed right out of the
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box. The ones I use on my channel are OCC tools and healthy knives which is a handmade knife
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excellent edges on them. I never take them anything lower than my leather strap.
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It's pointless. You're damaging the edge when you do that.
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Yeah it's good to have some recommendations for a good high quality tool.
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Oh yeah and I have a bunch of them on my website. I'm pretty sure if you
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do a Google search on best woodline knives I'm going to pop up there. I give a good run down of
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the best ones that I've found on the market and I've spent a lot of money on them. I think I
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calculated if I've spent probably about $5,000 on carving tools in the past couple of years just to
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see what's out there and try them out. That was one of the YouTube videos I found interesting.
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You pop on and the first thing you say is okay so I just bought $600 worth of knives just to test
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them. Wow that's an investment right there. That's what I do. My wife says I have a problem and I
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agree. At least you know what. That was the other half of my question that I had when you were
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chatting a couple minutes ago. The first one was what series of stones you take them to an order
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sharpen them. The other one was what sort of characteristics you look for it. I mean because we
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all have knives laying around but if I had to choose between the half a dozen knives I have sitting
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in my closet at the moment what characteristics make a decent whittling knife. That is a good question
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and is highly dependent upon the wood, the style of carving and the person carving. For general
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whittling I personally like a thinner blade especially if I'm using basswood. If I'm using
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harder wood than basswood a thinner blade is more likely to break. Like my healthy knife they
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are on the channel. Very thin blade. It slices right through it. But if someone is going to be
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carving anything harder I typically like going with a thicker blade because it's more rigid
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and the edge is actually hold up a little bit better. Then you're going to also have to figure out
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the style of carving like if you do in chip carving that's a completely different knife. There's
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a chip carving knife for that which is designed specifically to make little intricate patterns.
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But if you're trying to remove a lot of wood you're going to want a longer knife usually
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a curved blade so they can part of slicing motion. But for general whittling I like a flat edge.
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Again less than two inches is ideal for control. And the flat edge is also really easy to maintain.
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So it just takes it to the strap. You don't have to do any weird geometry when you're trying to
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hone it and it hones up faster. That's something that I've also noticed I've seen with a
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lot of other carvers is the fact that your carving knives only have one edge you have to maintain
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that really does sound like it would simplify knife sharpening. Oh it does. Yeah. Most of them
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are sharpening them a lot. It also allows for consistency on the sharpness because at the curve
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that you have to make sure you're sweeping it as you're honing it or sharpening it. And sometimes
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you have unevenness like your hand shifts or even if you reposition your hand and one area is
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going to have a smaller edg angle than are cutting a jangle than another. So it's easier to be
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consistent. I've always been a little surprised too by how small carving knives are because you say
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under two inches and for me when I'm looking at just like an everyday pocket knife even if
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an everyday pocket knife most of the time they're over two inches I would say. Yeah like I know
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ones I have on me I think this one is near four inches. Yeah that one's that one's about four
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inches and then my whittling knife that I carry on me has a smaller blade and a larger blade for
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two different purposes. Yeah. One's for detail, one's for slice enough stuff. So yeah it's
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each is purpose driven and sometimes like I know a lot of people they just want one whittling knife
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which is great. One in three forces is the general length for an all around blade but I like to
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have multiple have some that are inch long some that are three inches long completely different
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purposes and then eventually you'll end up having more knives than necessary like myself and have
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a couple of drawers and then it's like downhill from there. And we'll see if we end up also
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spending five grand on knives and have them laying all over the place huh? Yeah yeah I wouldn't
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recommend it. I pulled out a knife that I didn't remember buying it's gotten that bad.
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No for the average person though yeah if we know that we're looking for one knife with a
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you know get one high quality knife that's under two inches long that's do your most most of your
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stuff. Yeah. If you wanted like a small kit like my little kit that I just grab and go with me is
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made by OCC tools it has a one inch knife one in a half inch knife and a two inch knife.
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It's in a really rolling tool bag I take it with me if I'm going somewhere like hiking or
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distraveling and I want some nicer tool say with me and that's they'll cover 99.9% of any whittling
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project. Okay. So at that outside of this conversation we were talking a little bit about the
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difference between carving and whittling how much in the realm of other carving do you end up
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doing. Like are we talking about different mediums are we talking different styles here?
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different styles let's say we're still sticking with wood. All right so sticking with wood well
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the channel will be changing on my end because I like to do I don't like to be stuck in making one
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thing I like to grow yeah so I'm constantly pushing myself to try something new so I'm going to be
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adding regular relief carving to the channel larger scale wood carving that use more than just tools
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like knives I use other tools couches just and whatnot and then power carving will be on there
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and I do plan on putting some stone carving and multi-medium projects on there as well. Okay so
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I'm just I just want to carve stuff I want to have fun with it I don't know how else to put it.
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No I was just curious how much other stuff you did because your channel is I mean we've talked
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about stone carving and you mentioned you can see yourself more in a carver but your channel is
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almost entirely small wood projects. Oh yeah I started there because my original idea for the
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channel was to get people into carving honestly I feel like I've done that and now I want to keep
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them interested in carving. Get people involved in or interested in other aspects of carving.
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There's so many facets people will find where they want to go and that's that's the whole thing
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I might not get in the chainsaw carving I have friends for that. I may have a chainsaw that can do it
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but that's beyond my current desire. Yeah they're relief carving things sounds interesting to me and
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then my dad chipcarves so when I was younger I remember him doing some chip carving and like the
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bunk beds and whatnot we had his kids he chipcarve designs down the frame of them and stuff so
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that's something that I'm a little more familiar with but I'm not very familiar with
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doing more relief carving and things like that I see examples of it but I've never really tried.
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Even then there's multiple disciplines for relief carving like deep and shallow like I'm
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just going to do whatever I want on it it might be a combination there to be honest.
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Play you're going to play. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh another thing I noticed on your channel a lot we
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talked about slice-resistant gloves but I've also never seen anyone who wraps their other hand.
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Yeah like the little thumb guards and whatnot I put on that. Yeah that's primarily because for two
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reasons. I put those on there to allow me to push on the back of the blades because when you're
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pushing on the back of a very thin piece of steel it's not sharp but it can still bruise your
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thumb if you push it too hard. It hurts after a while. So like sometimes I'm waddling for a couple
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hours it'll wear out your thumb when you're pushing a lot on it. Also I do a lot of pairing cuts so
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it's just just in case I kind of thing so I don't lose track of my thumb and I don't actually bring
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the blade back into my thumb when I'm doing one of those. Also on another ones like if I'm using
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a longer blade I'll also wrap my pointer finger and that's primarily because it allows me to choke
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up on the blade. Like if I have a three inch blade I'm just going to grab my pointer finger around
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the sharp edge in order to utilize the tip of the blade so it allows me to choke up on it. Not
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entirely safe but I do it anyways kind of deal. Do what I say and not what I do type.
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More or less that your own discretion. It does make sense because I've noticed that even working
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on the projects you know I've worked on nothing large nothing takes very long but when you're pushing
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on the back of your blade a lot yeah the thumb does get sore. Mostly for me because a lot of the
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videos especially at the beginning I was making them back to back so it was I had long sessions ahead
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I mean I was planning ahead and a lot of the times those videos were made at two in the morning
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that's when I had quiet time so it's and also like because of my job I do a lot of fine detail like
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I work with very small components on circuit boards so I still need the mobility of my fingers so I
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can't have sore or cut up fingers it's it's necessary for my my job right now. Yeah like I said I
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just viewed that as a very good tip that I needed to pick up and start putting it back especially
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as doing things like the spoon carving because I don't do it frequently enough to get my thumb
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toughened up so I need to yeah take care of it a little bit. I can't stop fennel my thumb if I
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really want to but then I start losing the next area with other things I need to do so it's
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it's a given taken situation for person. Yeah and you're just using like an ace bandage
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around there right. It's a self adhering ace wrap I mean it doesn't need to be fancy it's just I
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literally walked down to the grocery store down the road picked one up said okay I'm gonna use this
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something to cushion the thumb a little bit yeah that's awesome uh
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any suggestions on like basic techniques you were saying you used just a lot of pairing cuts
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just a second ago is that something or they're like a couple of like go to cuts you end up
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using a lot that you'd recommend people learning if they're interested in more like a 3D
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whittling like you've demonstrated on your channel. I made a whole video on it recently so
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this is a very visual yeah it's a very visual thing um but the main ones that we're
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going to the most people are going to be using is like a standard push cut they're just basically
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pushing the knife through the wood to remove wood stock yeah kind of deal um and then another one
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is what's called a stop cut where you basically cut like right down into the wood uh to make like
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a slice into like if you're gonna start cutting it along the side with the saw and then you come
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through with like the slicing cut and hit that stop cut and you take like a little triangular wedge
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out in the middle so it's like you can actually stop the blade where you want it if you plan it
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properly yeah then there's other versions where it's like two die on cuts coming at each other you
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create a a v wedge into it which add more details in there as well then pairing cut which is most
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people know so like you just you're pulling the blade towards you uh a different way to position
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a hand to cut the wood um then it's all like fancy things where it can make like little trenches
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inside of wood like uh usually people use like a v gouge to create like a little v shape wedge
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on side you can do the same thing with the with the regular blade it's getting a more into chip carving
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doing that because you're yeah um having a pose and cuts against each other remove piece of wood
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and then uh the other ones there's other ones out there too but they're not very well used those
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are the ones that most people are gonna be using so i'll definitely throw a link to that specific
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video at the the bottom of the podcast episodes of people can go check it out all right but yeah
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just as a like a general overview it sounds like there were basically four general cuts that you
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used most frequently yeah i use those the vast majority of time there's a bunch of other cuts out
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there i think i have like eight cuts on that video um but the first ones are gonna be the ones that
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most people are gonna use almost all the time and it's gonna be what shapes and creates your
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carving almost all the way through if you get those four or five different cuts down you'll be golden
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uh from a whittling perspective i know i need to start small but i think the thing that i find
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interesting is i've looked at examples in the past of uh like the hand carved duck decoys
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oh yeah that people used to make oh they still do oh good i know people that still make them
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they're very gorgeous oh yeah oh okay i was about to say i look at those and like man just the
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uh that looks like a lot of work a uh especially you know you can go out and you can buy a bundle of
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duck decoys for pretty ship especially at yard sales uh you go to yard sell on a lot of older
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guys are selling off duck decoys and things like that but i'd look at that like uh but just the
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challenge of carving your in duck decoy and then attempting to go hunting over your duck decoy that
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you carved sounds yep challenging sounds fun so it's also very satisfying when it works sounds like
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it would be yeah that's that's a long term something i'd like to try at some point um
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that being said i'm not really a duck hunter at all i've never really gone duck hunting so it just
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sounds like a fascinating challenge um i hear you something that needs to be attempted at some point
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so uh appreciate you taking time i don't i don't really want to take too much your Sunday morning um
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i know you have other things to do so i have some youtube experiments i wanted to play around with
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yep like you get to it uh like i said i appreciate you coming on and taking a little
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bit time out of your morning do you want to point people anywhere in specific other than your
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well i guess your youtube channel and your website but anywhere else yeah well yeah my typical platforms
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are carvings fun on youtube and the blog uh carvingsfun.com i do have a facebook page
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i also have an instagram but i haven't been using it lately but you can usually contact me
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through there most people do so yeah those are the main places them on there is instagram the
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the place that most of you're listening or your viewers reach out to you then yeah i get people
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like contacting me through email but if they just want like a quick little thing they'll
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love reach out to me through instagram chat with me uh send me pictures of what they're working on
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yeah um say hey i have a problem now or they want to compare some of the different knives that i
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probably still have and just show them right then and there fun it's an easy way to get a hold of
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people and i recognize why a lot of people use it um honestly i haven't been on instagram
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in over a year i realized that i'm not very good at social media and i probably need to be a little
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better about social media um i mean i'm not great either all for sure link yours up so people can
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find you uh and just for for the listeners out there if uh i don't respond to you on instagram
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because i haven't been on there a long time
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okay thank you thank you brand thanks for listening to this episode of the Folkcraft Revival
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Podcast as always the show notes and links from this episode can be found over at folkcraftrevival.com
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forward slash whatever the episode number is uh should tell you right now in your your podcast
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player what episode this is i appreciate you tuning in if you have any guest or topic suggestions
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i'd love to hear from you shoot me an email over at daniel at folkcraftrevival.com
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if you want to help the podcast girl the best way to do that is recommend and share it with
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others they have like interests hope you enjoyed the episode now let's get out there and make something