How to Cut a Chain Out of a Single Piece of Wood
Whittlers have a handful of tricks, like carving a caged ball or a chain from a single piece of wood. The fun is in the illusion. The illusion lies in the assumption that chains -- as with steel chains -- must be made of separate links that are later connected. The assumption makes an inflexible and unglued wooden chain appear nearly impossible. The biggest part of the trick of carving a wooden chain is conceptualize the chain in the wood.
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Things You'll Need
- Basswood or other carving wood
- Table saw
- Table saw push stick
- Card stock
- Scissors
- Carpenter's square
- Band saw
- Drill
- Small drill bit
- Wood burr
- Carving knife
Instructions
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Imagine pulling two links of a chain, tight against one another. Relax, pushing the links towards one another, so there is a slight gap of just a few millimeters where the links had been touching. Stop. Look at this gap carefully. It's the most difficult part of the carving. You're going to drill crisscrossing holes through this gap to make it a lot easier.
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Cut a long strip of 2-by-2-inch wood with your table saw and rip fence.
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Create a blank for your chain -- an length of wood with the cross-section of a plus sign. Make rabbet cuts on each corner of a 2 by 2-inch board, leaving 1/2-inch thick tabs for the plus-sign profile. This blank will make the carving easier and faster.
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4
Cut out a card-stock template of a chain link, 4 inches long, 2 inches across with 1/2-inch-diameter links. The radius at the end of the links will be 1 inch.
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Make a light mark every 4 inches along your blank with a carpenter's square.
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Fold your template 3/4 inch from the long edge and lay the crease in the V of the blank. Center it between the 5-inch marks, and trace around it, then switch it and make the outline of the opposite side of the same link. Now you have the profile drawn for the horizontal links.
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Make another set of lines with your carpenter's square every 4 inches, but make these lines 2 inches from the first set. Mark your chain profiles for your vertical links, centered between these marks.
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Cut out the excess between links with a carving knife.
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Drill crisscrossing holes at 45-degree angles where you first imagine the chain links nearly touching. This will help separate the links and guide your carving.
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Draw the inside diameter of each chain link.
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Drill holes, removing as much of wood inside the chain diameter as possible. Use a bur as well as your drill bit.
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Carve the outside radius of the links with a carving knife or razor knife.
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Carve the inside radius of the links with a carving knife. A burr is especially handy where the links are closest to one another, but you don't need it. Once you've made the blank, drawn the outside and inside profiles, and removed nearly all the wood but the profiles, you should be able to visualize the links fairly easily. As old whittlers say, then just remove everything that isn't chain.
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Tips & Warnings
Examining a couple of steel links -- especially if they're approximately the same dimensions you're carving -- makes it much easier to visualize as you go.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Hemera Technologies/PhotoObjects.net/Getty Images
