Growing up in the Scottish countryside I can honestly say I was an outdoors person, to say the least. Daily routines of enjoyment for an 11-year-old boy were walking the dogs, fishing, building small river damns, chopping firewood, and many other activities associated with nature, you name it, I did it.
I loved everything I did but there was one pastime I loved to do more than anything else and that was climbing up huge oak trees next to my parent´s house, once I was up there I would get out my small pocket knife which I took everywhere with me and start to carve and sculpt my name and messages into the tree trunks. I soon realised that there was a definite art to chisel a name or design into wood.
I liked to think of my handy pocket knife like a wood working tool and in my mind, it became just that. My Wood carving knife was my best friend and my only wood tool for all my projects I completed ranging from small wooden figures to designs on flat pieces of wood.
I eventually became better and more experienced and I realised I was missing certain types of wood carving tools and I managed to acquire some old knives and I shaped them into the types of knives I realised I needed to advance with my woodwork projects. I made a Flat edged knife (Chisel), an angled knife (Skew Chisel), a V-Shaped knife (V-tool) and last but certainly not least was my favourite was the gouge design for doing exactly that, to gouge out forms. This was the turning point of my hobby as I had all the tools I needed. I made myself a wooden mallet to help me chisel with more accuracy and precision and used files that i had to round off corners.
I now have a son who is 12
years old as I was when I started wood carving with my pocket carving knife and now he enjoys the wood sculpturing as much as I did all those years ago, although he does have the added benefit for success of choosing from a variety of great tools on the market today.
The reality of having a selection of the Wood-carving chisel tools that I had made myself really gave me a heightened sense of self-satisfaction and enjoyment to know that whatever project I wanted to start I knew I could carve the perfect wood sculpture from any piece of wood. I learned the hard way of acquiring the right tools for the job but it was worth it and gave me the inspiration to continue my much-loved hobby today.