Whittlers/Carvers Second Best Friend!

The scroll saw!  Second best friend because knife, gouges, strop are grouped as the best friends.  At least I think so!  You just cannot beat the scroll saw for removing lots of the waste wood when preparing to whittle and/or carve.  And for larger carvings, the band saw may rule.  But for me it's the scroll saw.  Most of my work is done one Basswood that is 3/4" thick.  This means that I can trace a pattern on the wood and cut it out with the scroll saw.

Scroll saws do not have to be expensive to be effective for a whittler/carver.  When one cuts patterns out to be whittled/carved, precise cutting are seldom necessary.  Just make your pattern a wee bit larger than you wish the finished piece to be; or cut outside the pattern line.

What you can whittle/carve becomes limitless.  Just use you computer to search for an illustration.  Once you find the illustration, merely reduce or enlarge it, print it out and trace it on the wood.  Or for those of us who remember what carbon paper is, transfer the outline to the wood using the carbon paper.

Once the piece is cut out, it merely becomes knife technique for whittlers, and knife and gouge technique for carvers.  And, of course  the properties of the wood.