Understanding the grain of the wood is an important skill for wood carvers.  Before you begin any project find the grain lines and grain patterns in your wood block.  Plan how the flow of the grain will affect your cutting strokes and detailing.  With any project you will at times be working with, against, or diagonally across the grain of the wood.

Every piece of wood will have it's own grain pattern and flow.  Begin each project by determining the direction of the grain, the angle of the grain lines, and where any imperfections are in your wood block.  Most wood surfaces will be cut at a slight angle, your grain lines will not be perfectly square to the wood form.  This means that the grain lines of the wood will flow at an angle to the edges of your wood block.  

Tips to working with the grain:
1.  Place your pattern on the wood so that long carving strokes go with the flow of the grain.
2.  Know the angle of the wood grain as compared to the angle of your wood boards edges.
3.  Avoid placing heavily detailed areas against the grain or where there are knots in the wood.
4.  Determine where in a pattern you will have to work against, with or diagonally to the grain.

 I am using the Santa Cookie from our e-Project, Santa Cookie Carving and the Wood Spirit Carving eProject for the project in this look at how to make your carving cuts.

If you are cutting into the grain line angle your cut strokes will take more wood, cut deeper, and cut wider slices.  You can use this to your advantage when you need to dramatically drop an area into the background of your work.

In the wood spirit carving below I need to make three deep v-cuts to create the eye, nose and mouth areas of his face.  Notice in the center image that I am working these cuts into the grain angle of the wood block.  This allows me to take larger slices easily which drops these v-cuts down quickly.  
   
Working into the wood grain angle can cause an area to split out.  Because the cut is along the grain a split can occur where the wood separates along the grain line above your knife edge.  When working into the grain angle use stop cuts to control this tendency of the grain splitting or tearing.  Notice in the wood spirit sample that each area; the eyes, nose and mouth, were first cut with a stop cut, then the v-cut was worked into that stop cut.
    

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For this wood spirit I need to 
create three deeply angled 
v-shaped cuts for the eyes, 
nose and mouth areas.

Click for Close Up

I have  started the work by first
finding the grain line angle.  
In the Close Up 
you will see the grain
line compared to the square
edge of the wood block.
    
   

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By working with the 
grain line angle I can make
my deep v-cuts easily.  

Working Against the Grain Line Angle

As you carve you will be creating contours, areas of the carving that curve or roll away from a high point.  When it is time to add the fine detailing you can work against the grain line angle to create shallow, well controlled cutting strokes.

In the images below Santa's beard has been contoured to curve away from a point approximately 1/3 of the way down from his mustache.  The areas of his beard above this point flows down to his mouth and those areas below that point flow down to the tip of his beard.  This contouring changes the grain line angle at that high point in his beard.  

Because I am detailing Santa's beard with the v-gouge I want to work against the grain line angle.  I want to remove just a small amount of wood and I want to have total control over where the v-gouge goes.  Start by knowing where the highest point in the contoured area is.  The detailing cuts are made by starting at this high point and working against or away from the grain line angle.  The v-gouge detailing to Santa's beard is therefore made in two v-cut strokes.  One cut is made working from the high point into his mustache, then the work was turned around.  The v-gouge was placed back into the cut at the high point and the second half of his beard v-cut was made working towards the beard's tip.
    

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You can see along the outer edge of Santa's beard how this area is contoured, rolling 
away from a point about 1/3 
of the way into this area.

      

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The first half of the v-cut hair
detailing was done working against the grain line angle from the high point towards his face.

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Santa has been turned so that the second half of the v-cut hair can be worked, again by working away from the grain line angle, towards the beard's tip.

There are times that your area calls for working at a diagonal direction to the grain lines of your wood.  Diagonal cuts to the grain tend to have rough or tattered edges along the cutting stroke.  Here you are pulling up small amounts of wood because of the grain along the sides of the knife.  These cuts need to be made with as sharp a knife as possible to reduce the amount of tattering.  Once an area has been rough cut you can re-work that area by shaving.  This is a technique where the tool barely touches the wood, taking extremely thin slices.  Shaving will remove the tattered or torn edges of a cut made diagonally across the grain.

Every project has some areas of end grain.  These are areas in the wood block where the board has been cut at a 90 degree angle to the grain lines.  For Santa's the end grain is in the top of his hat and at the tip of his beard.  Just as with diagonal grain cuts use a very sharp knife.  Roll areas of end grain over slowly, taking thin cuts to create the curve.  Avoid placing a highly detailed area of your pattern in an end grain area when ever possible.  
   

     
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Working diagonally across the grain can
cause the cuts to have ragged, torn or 
tattered edges.  Once the rough out work
is complete lightly shave the area to 
remove the tattering.

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