My new power carver.

Hello,

I am new here, and just recently (an hour ago) purchased my first power carver. It is the Foredom 2276 Flex Shaft Power Tool Kit. I have no experience, whatsoever, with carving - but have always had the desire for it. I got my unit (still unopened) from Lowe's, at a clearance price of $100. I think that it is a good price, and wanted to know what would be your recommendations for a decent carving bit assortment kit. Thanks in advance.

NLA,

Nice job, I got the same kit from Lowes for 130 bucks a while back.

Get yourself a reciprocating handpiece for the Foredom, either the Foredom #50 or the Weicher (spelling?) handpiece and some flexcut gouges for it. I bought the 4 piece "roughing" set they sell at Treeline. I likes 'em. You can't go wrong with it. Also take the Benz sharpening course as you will need to sharpen you gouges every few minutes to keep them working well. The sharper the betta.

-Gman

Welcome aboard.

Check here for a lot of answers
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=10451&forum=7&161

Post progress soon
JP

Gman & JohnnyP,

Thanks much, for your responses. You know, I STILL haven't taken the carver out of the box yet. The deal is that I am so afraid that - once I do - I am going to be on it for the night. So, I am waiting til tomorrow morning to tear into some wood. Thanks for the provided info, and I am going to check into the mentioned attachments just as soon as I finish this.

Well, I hope to have something - before long - to post pics of. I do know that one of the things I want to do is to carve playing pieces for a rather large chess set, that I desire to make for sale. We'll see what happens.

Good luck bro, and PM me if you need help or have any questions.

-Gman

Aloha NLA & Welcome to TC. Congrats on the power carver. You went straight up to the big guns there. Remember though, the spinning tools compliment the chisels. The recip carvers that Gman mentioned are excellent as well. Just make sure and get some basic chisels to go with them. You can't make plunge cuts with the recip chisels, so make a small investment in chisels, even if it's the flat Home Depot variety. That will get you started, and you can always get an set of high quality chisels later. Most of us with the high end chisels still use the flat chisels a lot of the time as well. Good Luck!

A-A

I'm with AA...hone your skills on chisels. That's gonna be your bread and butter. I'd go with a Pfiel basic set if you wanna spend some bucks, or a Henry Taylor or Flexcut set for good, sharp, durable, and less expensive.

Be aware that the Weecher (and prolly Foredom) recip hand pieces are to be run in a forward direction only on Foredom Flex Shaft Units that have the reverse feature. I blew one up running it backwards.

Also be aware that the recip hand pieces are not meant to remove lots of wood. I've already worn mine out by making it work too hard. Flexcut Power Gouges are the hot lick. They are expensive and require sharpening as stated above, but they are well worth it.

Also as stated above, there's no substitue for mallet chisels - you'll still want to get a set.

Thanks to everyone, for the warm welcome - and valuable advice. I can readily see that this is the place to be, and I have no doubt that much will be learned from being a member here. In my initial post I stated that I had no experience in woodcarving, and that it is true when it comes to 'real experience'. I can remember, many years ago, when I took a couple of double-edged razor blades; stiffened the one edge by taping folded matchbooks around it, and carving an african mask out of a piece of 2"x3" pine. I wound up with a couple of minor cuts, but the little mask came out (surprisingly) quite nice, for my first and only attempt at carving - especially considering the tool used. I, in fact, sold the piece (not for much, at all, but it meant something that someone thought enough of it to buy it).

A power-chisel has also been mentioned, here, and I (some time ago) had purchased an inexpensive Ryobi unit for our oldest daughter, that I plan to try out once it is located (haven't been able to zero in on it since we moved to our new home. But I know that it is here - somewhere). It will be a while, but I am definitely looking into some hand chisels, and a carving knife also. The reciprocating head, for my Foredom, is on the list, too.

This is going to open up a whole new avenue of woodworking for me, and I intend on getting started just as soon as I can get out to purchase myself a good respirator. I read, just recently, where someone mentioned a 'powered' respirator - which seemed to work very well, for that post's author, and I will see about one of those.

Once again - I appreciate you all.