There are a lot of things that you can do with wood without spending a lot of money. For example, you can make figurines, furniture, useful tools and wood carved gifts.

Take your time with wood. Like any media, it too needs to be given purpose. It doesn’t matter if you are making a chair for an old lady or a slingshot for a child, you need to follow your heart.

Once you are a master at woodworking you will have the power to create anything that you want. And you can even make a living out of it anywhere in the world. But for that, you need to learn a few skills.

To be a master you need a lot of woodworking skills. Woodturning a carving, whittling, burning and scroll sawing are some to name.

Woodturning

For woodturning, you need a lathe. The wood spins as the wood shapes into what you intend. You can make a lot of things using the woodturning technique. Some examples are bowls, jewelry, and components for furniture.

When the wood is turning you use a handheld tool called a chisel. They come in many shapes and sizes. So when you are scaping of wood using the chisel, the cut distributes evenly. It’s a lot like making pottery with your hand.

Woodturning can create a perfect foundation for female figurines. You can create the roundness of curves symmetrically.

After the basic shape, you can take it off the axial and start chipping away. Slowly you can cut away here and there and soon anatomical details appear.

By woodturning you can make beads for ornaments easily. You can also make pepper grinders. Anything wooden that is round and curvy is probably a product of woodturning.

You need some wood and the right equipment to start practicing. Soon you will get the hang of woodturning, and you will be able to make all sorts of innovative objects of beauty.

Whittling and Carving

Whittling and carving are similar but different. On the one hand, carving uses gouges and chisels to carve out intricate details. Some times carving requires tools like mallets and lathes too. And, on the other hand, whittling obtains the same result only using a knife.

If you want to know the art of whittling, get yourself a knife and a lot of wood. Practice makes perfect so you have to spend time experimenting. You can also explore online material on how to start whittling to get the basic idea.

Soon you will find that there are different cuts do different things. Once you have honed a few tricks, you can combine them to do even more.

The great thing about whittling is that you can do it pretty much anywhere you want. You can do it in your room or on the sofa in front of the TV.

Carving however might need a particular place especially if you are using a lathe. But the extra arsenal doesn’t make it superior to whittling. It just makes the process of making beautiful objects slightly faster.

Wood Burning

Wood Burning is an art that can give you unbelievable pleasure. When you are wood-burning you get to play with real fire.

As you are working with fire, you have to be careful. But don’t shy away from the task because of the danger involved. If you take the proper safety measures then you have nothing to worry about in woodburning.

So to do wood burning, you need some softwood. This is because hardwood is difficult to burn. Maple, ash or pine are good examples of an ideal wood for this craft. Next, get yourself some sandpaper.

The sandpaper should be a 320 grit for effective results. With the paper, sand the wood properly so that you have a smooth surface to work on. Now that you have yourself a little wooden canvas, you can take out your wood-burning pen.

When you are using the wood-burning pen, apply steady pressure to run light strokes to engrave the softwood. Go to and from to achieve depth but don’t concentrate on one spot for too long.

The designs that result from wood burning are unbelievably beautiful. The designs are art pieces on their own but you can do much more with them. You can use the crafted out designs to make prints on paper.

Just apply paint on the surface of the design. The parts that are engraved will remain paintless and the rest is covered in a coat of paint. Now you can print the design on paper or walls as many times as you want.

Conclusion

Once you have learned Woodturning, Whittling, Carving, and Woodburning, you can become a true artist. You will know many tricks and the things that you make will be exemplary.

The key is innovation, as it is in so many other cases. Try different styles on the same project and you will find that wood is as easy to mould as clay.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a professional or not, take your time. Be with the wood for it to go anywhere special in the craft. And who says mistakes are wrong. Every false cut leads to a million opportunities whereas the right one leads to one. Happy woodworking!