Knives and chisels mean sharpening and here we have another learning curve! My dad always sharpened everyone’s knives in my family. He enjoyed this and as he would visit family on my parents yearly trips from their retirement in Florida he carried sharpening stones etc and people from Maine to VA waited for him to sharpen their knives. So, I never learned to sharpen knives let alone rounded and V shaped chisels. Again, out of the basement came an assortment of sharpening stones inc. a Japanese King Combination Water Stone which I have set aside until I master the western stones.

Test result with mallet.

My current favorite tool is a wonderful leather mallet. As I have been testing my mark making with wood blocks I have used my knife and chisels alone. Two days ago I got to the stage where I was trying to carve out larger areas (large is relative as I am working on blocks about 5.5 x 6.5 inches).

After a few hours of very slow going I realized that my neck muscles were speaking to me and this was not working. So I spent a day doing stretching exercises and yoga for my neck and back and working on other projects.

Then the other day I was carving and picked up the mallet. All of a sudden the instructions I’ve read on how to hold these tools etc made sense and the work was much faster, and finer. I have much more control and while I have lots of practice ahead, I can see that this can work. Bob says with all the tap, tap, tapping I sound like Geppetto!