Carving on mahogony

[Jim Finn]

I was having trouble with splintering of mahogony while carving, using a "V" tool. I Sharpened the gouge but not much help. I tried putting a, spray on, acrilic finish on it first and then carved it. It reduced the splintering to zero. This finish sands off easily afterwards if wanted. Seems, it held the surface of the wood together well enough to make a clean cut.

[Daniel Heine]

First, in my opinion and that of many other woodworkers, mahogany should not be used. The rain forests of South America are being destroyed to meet the demand.

One thing that would help: Never carve with the grain. You should always begin the cut from the shortest part of the grain to the longest. Please refer to my VERY crude drawing. The straight lines represent the grain, oval the pattern, and curved lines with arrows the direction of the cut.

Good Luck,
Dan

[Frank Drew]

First, in my opinion and that of many other woodworkers, mahogany should not be used. The rain forests of South America are being destroyed to meet the demand.

Not really, very much the main reason the forests are being cleared is to make room for agriculture, and population growth; the sale of tropical hardwoods isn't the principal driver, and if fact a lot of the cleared wood is simply burned.

But it's also possible that the OP is using African Mahogany

[Bob Easton]

It is the nature of a v-tool that when carving across grain one side or the other of the tool will be at a disadvantage and likely to tear. The answers are (1) careful grain orientation as in Dan's drawing, which you likely know already, (2) getting that tool incredibly sharp, or (3) don't use a v-tool at all. For the 3rd case, use a chisel (flat) or gouge of desired sweep to first set a stop cut along the center of the intended trench. Then, cut in from each side to male the v. No tear out at all with this method.

[george wilson]

It helps if you can sharpen your V tool so that the cutting edge angles forward,like the bow of a clipper ship,rather than being just straight up and down. Some of my antique V tools have edges like that. This causes the tool to cut the top surface of the wood first.

Another thing: There is often a little beak of steel left sticking out of the apex of the V tool. That needs to be eliminated. It erupts the wood from beneath the cut,and causes tearing. You get rid of it by stoning with a triangular slip stone held at a rather steepish angle down,till its angle causes the stone's shape to fit the inside of the V tool. Sounds strange,but it works. I prefer a CERAMIC slip stone. It will keep its sharp corners much longer than an Arkansas stone. It will not groove,either.

[Mike Henderson]

In my opinion, the two best woods to carve are Honduras mahogany and basswood. Both are not too hard, don't have a lot of figure to distract from the carving and generally cut pretty easily. African mahogany (which is not a real mahogany) does not carve as well - the grain is not a straight as Honduras mahogany. Our American woodworking ancestors mostly worked in Cuban mahogany and carved some beautiful and unique pieces.

I sharpen my V-tool the way George described above and find it helps quite a bit.

Mike