Chris Pye - Woodcarving

A GUIDE TO SAFE WOODCARVING

2: Your Best Safeguards

What is the best precaution against accidents? Mindfulness.

Most accidents are caused by momentary absent-mindedness - a lack of concentration or presence of mind.
Still, you can minimize the chances of accidents happening by controlling your environment, and thinking through potential hazards. So for example, the cutting edge of a gouge is projecting, and you strike your hand on it.
What actually causes the accident is a mixture of unawareness, and the attitude that leaves the gouge or the hand dangerously positioned.

It is easy to daydream or to be otherwise distracted while carving. From time to time, all carvers will have this happen.
So back up your normal mindfulness two ways:

  1. Work in as safe an environment as possible.
  2. Cultivate good, safe working practices - i.e, specific carving habits and more general workshop disciplines.
Lack of experience certainly counts too, so make an effort to understand and familiarise yourself with all tools - especially power equipment - before using them in earnest.
Also, remember that familiarity - while it may not "breed contempt" in the workshop - certainly invites a casual attitude. And "casual", when carving, is hazardous.

So:

  • Be mindful, aware.
  • Control your working environment.
  • Establish safe habits of woodcarving and woodworking.
  • Beware of distractions.
  • Avoid over confidence.
Much of what follows occurs, in broader context and more detail, in my books, where you can study the issues more deliberately. See the notes that follow more or less as a whole, rather than "steps" in any particular order.

Before looking at woodcarving itself, let's walk around the place where you do it and: Consider your Workshop

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Contents | Download this Guide
1.Introduction | 3.Consider your Workshop | 4.Woodcarving Specific | 5.Your Body | 6.Power tools
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