power carving with a dremel

[ecklesweb]

Anyone have any good tips or resources regarding power carving with rotary tools like a dremel?

I was just screwing around the other day engraving 4" letters into some eastern white pine and had fun doing it. I printed out the letters on my inkjet, then used an awl to trace the outline of the letter into the pine. If I'd had carbon paper, I would have used that.

One thing I had trouble with was smoothing the dug-out areas. I had some luck with a tear-drop or spade shaped bit, but wasn't thrilled with the results. Maybe use the dremel to hog out a lot of the waste and then use hand tools to clean it up? What do you do?

Any of you guys use the flexible shaft? I know that's more like what "real" power carving systems use, but I didn't find it particularly awkward without the flex shaft.

Basically any tips on bit selection, accessories, or technique would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Jay

[David Sercel]

Jay,

I carve birds and use power tools predominantly.

Although the selection of bits will vary depending on
what you are carving, here are some of the bits that I
use most.

For roughing out I use two bits:

One is called a Karbide
Kutzall. You can get them in three coarsneses and they
are good for hogging off large amounts of wood.

The other is called a Typhoon. I like it best because it removes wood more controlably.

You can get them both in a large selection of sizes and shapes
and with 1/4, 1/8, or 1/32 inch shanks.


For detailing I like using fine ruby or diamond burs in a wide
variaty of shapes.

[mudman]

I use a dremel sometimes for doing the detail work on my pieces, I also fave a foredom flexshaft that I use for detail and shaping large pieces of sculpture , for incising letters in a wood panel I use a 3/4 hp Ryobi router with an appropriate size bit for the project at hand . For smaller panels a laminate trimmer works well with a smaller bits.You can view my gallery of Carribbean reef fish carvings at:

http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-marinelifewoodcarvings

[autobodyman]

I carve with B&D rotary tools, for your lettering application I would use a mini router or even a full size variable speed router. I carved this with the use of mini router and just my B&D rotary's:
431
If you want to check out some more carvings I did with dremil type tools:
http://www.mikesphotos.dpreview.photoshare.co.nz/


I have a fairly large assortment of bits, but these are the ones I use most, the one with the X is my most used bit:
432

My wife bought me a turbo carver for christmas a few years back which really helped with fine details and smaller carvings like this gun stock I did for my son.
http://www.PhotoShare.co.nz/PhotoShareGallery1/100503/108908/138025.jpg
Here is most of my carving tools, though I don't have my chainsaw or my larger routers in the picture and only 3 of my 8 B&D's.
http://www.PhotoShare.co.nz/PhotoShareGallery1/100503/108025/carvetools1670_S.jpg

Hope some of this helps.
~Mike