DIY: Wood Chiseling

After watching Aimee Inouye chisel away at the gorgeous bench she was working on last week, I was inspired to give woodworking a try. The first thing I discovered is that the type of wood you use matters. Wood comes in varying hardness and grains. If you’re a beginner looking for the perfect substrate, I’d suggest basswood or butternut. You can find blocks and panels at your local craft store or even larger hardware stores. Now as they say, practice makes perfect. So grab a few scrap blocks to practice with before you attempt the project at hand.
You’ll need a pencil, wood, a chisel set, and a rubber mallet. Take a look at the steps below. I’m drawn to a more handmade aesthetic, so I made my chisel marks pronounced and jagged to give it a personal touch. If that’s not your taste, be a bit tidier with your lines.

Now that you’ve gotten the hang of the basics, you can move on to the real thing. It’s always good to have a plan, so start off with a template of how you’d like the sign to look. Use that template to create a shallowly traced guide into the wood. Once you have your pattern, make deeper cuts. You may want to go over a the letters a few times to make the incisions thicker and deeper into the surface. Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect. That’s the nature of handmade arts.

My crafting outfit: Carhartt Women’s El Paso Utility Jacket, Clarkston Cami Tank, Sibley Denim Shorts, & Carhartt Legacy 14″ Tool Bag. 

Anne, Welder at Stonybrook Fine Arts in Boston

This is Anne from Stonybrook Fine Arts, a sculpture studio in Boston. She, her husband, Morris Norvin, and Benjamin Todd opened up the space in 2007. They offer classes in different sculptural media including welding, bronze and aluminum casting, jewelry, lost wax casting, mold making, stone carving and live figure sculpture. Anne is an artist, a teacher, and a managing partner of Stonybrook. Her preferred mediums are glass and metal. I got to hang out with her while she was doing a little metal working. Her favorite piece of Carhartt clothing is the women’s tomboy jacket because she can wear it in the shop and still look great when she hops on the back of her husband’s motorcycle to go to dinner. To read more about Stonybrook Fine Arts visit their website here.

Carhartt does not make any garments that are specifically designed to be worn when welding. Carhartt Flame-Resistant Clothing will protect better than 100% cotton or synthetic garments because the FR fabric is self-extinguishing. However, flame-resistant clothing is susceptible to holes and fabric burns created by sparks and metal debris generated by activities such as welding.