CARVER'S TIP: Which Knife for Carving Old-World Style? 

I'm happy to be of service. I don't generally do straight-up instructional videos, but I'd be happy to talk about a topic or point something out if you have any specific questions.

Yeah, I think this seems to be the standard chip carving knife over in Russia and Ukraine. It probably works better for their straight-line-based style, though, too. It would be very challenging, I think, to use this for carving text.

Thanks for the comment. Is your work available to see online?

I'm not familiar with Pfeil tools, and I found the website to be hard to navigate. Do you have a link or picture of the tool you're referring to? I was largely comparing this to the standard chip carving knife since that's what most people will be using. Compared to a chip carving knife, the three things I like about this for OWS are the longer blade, the thinner handle, and the angle of the blade relative to the handle. So anything that's similar in those three aspects would probably be perfectly suitable.

You're welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Yep. All of my videos use basswood.

That's a fair question. They key is to look at the angle of the blade when making the cut. With Swiss style, the knife is always at the same angle on every cut. So for a generally symmetrical chip, the deepest part is around the middle. When carving old-world style, there are two different carving angles. It's typically done on triangular (or roughly triangular) chips. The first two cuts have the knife going almost 90 degrees straight down into the wood -- I usually lay it down a little off of 90 degrees, but close to vertical. Then for the third cut, the knife is laid down very flat, close to 0 degrees from the surface. This makes a single carved surface, and the deepest point is way off to one corner of the chip. (There's obviously technically still 3 carved surfaces, but two are near vertical, so you don't really see them except for the shadow they create.) Is that clear enough? Does it explain the difference? If you'd like, I can see about doing a video to specifically go over the differences.

This is the knife I used in this video: woodcarving-tools.com/collections/woodcarving-knives/products/knife-for-woodcarving-wood-carving-chisel-chip-carving-tool-detailed-whittling-knives-woodworking-craft-tools-stryi-gift-for-father Here's a similar but cheaper versions: beavercrafttools.com/product/c10-geometric-carving-knife/ Those are for the style I demonstrated in the video. If you're interested in traditional style chip carving knives, I've only ever bought from MyChipCarving.com, but have been very happy with them.

Traditional chip carving involves all cuts at the same angle. Thus, if you're doing something like an equilateral triangle, the deepest point is in the center. With old-world style, you make two cuts vertical or nearly vertical, then the third cut is very shallow. Thus, traditional style produces 3 equivalent facets (for a triangle), while OWS creates essentially 1 facet in the chip. You'll find that OWS almost exclusively creates triangles, whereas traditional can make any shape. Maybe I'll see about making a video in the future comparing the two styles.

I personally find it easier to use for old-world style chips. I still use a standard chip carving knife for Swiss style chips (equal cuts on all sides). I'm sure it's different for each person, though. Some people might not find this any easier to use. It definitely takes some practice.

Are you able to translate that to English? Google translated it as "Horror what you do," which doesn't make sense.