carving

[Charlie Knighton]

highland woodworking offers for sale a flexible shaft reciprocating power carving attachment for dremel tools.

anybody use this item, how did it work? it is in my budget range and i do have a dremel already.

 

[Gynia]

This is a light duty tool. If you use it to take light cuts for short periods of time with sharp tools in softer hardwoods... This isn't an Automach. You would do better getting a small set of hand held gouges. Save up for the Automach if you decided that you need to do a lot of power carving.

You still need to have sharp tools and pay attention to the grain direction. Taking a class in carving would be of more benefit than the flex-shaft tool. In that class you will learn more about which tools to use for what.

 

[Rick Crawford]

Hi Charlie, you would be better off looking for a Ryobi DC500 reciprocating carver on ebay. They're discontinued by the manufacturer, but do the job very well, and take the Flexcut RG blades, which are still available in boxed sets. As mentioned before, sharpness and grain orientation are very important. I also have the reciprocating handpiece for the Foredom, which is much more powerul than the Dremel, but it also is only good for light cuts. I keep it around as a backup in case my Ryobi ever bites the dust. Hope this helps!

Smiles,
Rick

 

[john lucas]

I've been researching the various reciprocating carvers for a while now. I own a Ryobi that they don't make anymore. It's a shame because it's a decent tool for beginners because it was so inexpensive and not a bad tool.
It's not in the same league by far as the Automac but when I got mine (which was the last one that Highland Hardware sold I think) it was something like $39 compared to the Automac's $300.
I've used it a fair amount but it vibrates a lot and isn't good for long hours of usage. I tend to use it for course work or long straight repetitive lines that are hard for me to do by hand. I use my hand tools for more detailed work.
I have wanted something with less vibration and little smaller in size so I have been looking at the various flex shaft types and talking to other carvers. There is no doubt that they all prefer the Automac but I've found that many are happy with the Foredom piece. All complain about the lack of freedom when using a flex shaft type tool but many have one and use it so that's the direction I'm leaning right now since I have a Foredom motor.
I also have several Dremel's with flex shafts and they are decent machines for small work. They aren't strong enough for heavier cuts which is why I have shy'ed away from the Dremel reciprocating carver in favor of the Foredom. However I still have jumped in and purchased one yet so it's a little early to speak with authority. I'm saving for the Automac for when my Ryobi dies but I think the Foredom might be a decent purchase to keep me playing for a while longer.

 

[Greg Thomas]

carvers and accessories

Buying a carver is just the start. There seems to abe an unlimited amount of cutters and power carving bits for Foredom type machines. I think this would make a good article by someone who has the experience and expertise. I'd really like to know what turners who do a lot of power carving would recommend. Any takers?

 

[Bill Boehme]

I have a Foredom plus a few other carving tools including a few "hand-powered" carving tools. I don't do a great deal of carving although that might change a bit after I finish my upcoming class with Trent Bosch in a couple weeks.

I bought a package deal with my Foredom that included a bunch of stuff including a couple dozen different carving attachments. I have found that I mainly use one particular medium size burr that has a somewhat pine cone shape except more pointed on the tip. It is really good for removing lots of material really fast. The downside is that all of the dust from a rotating power carver goes straight towards the carvers face. It is really necessary when using one of these devices to have a faceshield, earplugs, goggles, and very good breathing protection. Otherwise the resulting wood dust storm will get in your eyes, mouth, ears, nose and lungs. The ear plugs are just to keep the stuff out of our ears and not because of the noise. I also have a very small pneumatic grinder from HFthat works great, but the disadvantages of it are that it is very loud with a high pitched whine and the air discharge seems to make the dust cloud even more of a nuisance. I have the small Proxxon reciprocating carving tool. It is very nice because it does not throw out dust, but it is for detail carving and is not useful for simply wasting material.

 

[Donna Banfield]

I do a lot of carving on my turned work. I started my carving with some palm sized Flex Cut and Ramelson carving tools. I prefer the Ramelson to Flexcut because they are a bit shorter and fit my smaller sized palm.

I bought a WeCheer power carver from Woodcraft many years ago. It allowed me to do power carving with rotary burrs and reciprocating cuts. It came with a flex shaft attachment. If you are just getting into carving, and not sure if you're going to enjoy it, start small, like the hand held carving tools or the WeCheer.

But, if you do enjoy the carving aspect, then you will most certainly burn up the WeCheer. I did; it was never meant for anything more than some light carving. I replaced the WeCheer with three different carvers: the Automach for reciprocating cuts, and the NSK Evolution (slow speed) power carver and the NSK Presto air powered (high speed) carver. All three are pricey, but you don't need to start there. I started out small, and replaced the tools as I outgrew or burned up the inexpensive tools.

If you are looking for a power carver, you might want to avoid the Powercrafter. That machine requires oil to operate, and IIRC, there were threads on this forum a while back about that carver having some repair issues -i.e., if you owned one that needed to be serviced, good luck .

 

[hughie]

I have a Dremel with a Archer reciprocating attachment. Works OK on light cuts, no good for heavy cuts as it gets to darn hot to handle, by a good one.