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Sharpening Stone or Strop

So you’ve stopped to sharpen the blade while whittling wood. Great, but what are you using? This can certainly be personal preference, but there are two basic camps, strops or stones. Typically, those using a pocketknife use a stone, while those using a carving knife will use a leather strop, shown here. You can make your own strop buy gluing part of a belt to piece of wood. Draw the blade back and forth several times at a low angle (10 to 20 degrees).

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Making Cuts

You may have been told to always cut away from yourself and yes, this is generally a good rule. However, when whittling wood, several cuts require you to cut toward yourself. The rough cut is a hard pushing cut that takes off large chunks. The thumb-push uses the secondary hand’s thumb to guide the blade as you cut. The paring cuts, like if you’re paring apples, is a pulling cut that cuts toward you and your own thumb. It can take a bit of practice to get these cuts right.

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Whittling Gloves

There are a number of gloves out there to protect you as you are whittling wood. One of my favorite is a cut-proof glove with a Kevlar palm. It’s pretty hard to hurt yourself while wearing one of these. It is also pretty hard to feel the wood and manipulate the knife. Old timers don’t wear any protection while whittling wood. However, you may feel more comfortable starting out with something protecting your digits.

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