During the warm summer months, I like to sit outside and make relief carvings of animals and flowers, but I must admit that I have never tried chip carving. From the instructions, it appears to be a very simple form of wood carving that just about anyone can learn to do.
The article below was originally published in 1897.
Indian Chip Carving
The art of Indian chip carving is one which is just now coming much into favor and it is really, for small articles, even more effective than the relief carving which has been in vogue for many years.
Chip carving has also the advantage of being easier to learn and of requiring only one tool and, as the chips are small and so easily kept together and the wood does not need to be clamped onto the table, it can be done even in the drawing room, and a small article, such as a photograph frame or matchbox, is as nice as a piece of needlework to take with one when paying a visit.
The only tool require is a small knife, as shown in diagram A, costing about 25 cents, though, of course, a pair of compasses, pencil and ruler are necessary to draw one’s own designs, and to anyone with a taste for geometrical drawing this is almost as interesting as the carving.
The wood used must be close grained and soft, as no mallet can be used; white lime and sycamore being the best, though it can be done in other kinds.
In beginning it is best to take some simple pattern, such as is shown in diagram B, which it will easily be seen is composed of small squares crossed from corner to corner.
Grasp the knife firmly in your right hand, using your left hand to guide and keep it steady. Press the point of the knife deeply into the center of the square and cut down the line A, making the cut gradually shallower toward the corner of the square.
Note that this cutting down does not mean drawing the knife down the line, but simply pressing it down onto the line. When cutting down a line which is longer than the knife, the point must be pressed into the center and drawn down the line. Proceed in the same way with lines B,C and D, and so on with all the squares.
In cutting down these lines the blade of the knife must be pressed perfectly straight into the wood or the point is liable to break. Then put the point of your knife in an E, keeping the blade nearly flat against the wood, and draw it down the line F, gradually pressing the point into the center of the square, so as to entirely detach the triangular piece of wood. It will be seen by diagram C that when all these triangular pieces (G) have been taken, a line of diamond shaped pieces will be left. Then with the point of your knife make a small straight cut in each side of the diamond, slanting toward the center, and a small slanting cut into the straight one (diamond D), and you will have a very pretty and effective little border.
The depth of the pattern described should be about one-eighth of an inch in the deepest parts.
Source: Barton County democrat. (Great Bend, Kan.), 28 Oct. 1897.
