Wood Carving With a Dremel

This Instructable was written as part of the Dremel Build at ADX Portland. I want to thank Dremel and Instrucatbles for sponsoring the event. I've used a Dremel before but this was a great chance to check out the latest models. I've never used the Multi-Max before and I was very impressed with its cutting abilities.

Here are the tools you will need for this Instructables:

• Dremel Multi-Max and cutting tools and sanding tools.
• Rotary Dremel and carving and sanding tools
• Clamps to secure the wood while cutting
• A block of wood
• Pencil

Start by figuring out the largest cuts you can make on your block of wood to create the rough shape of what you are going to carve. I decided to carve a skull (I love Halloween). So I started by rounding the edges of my block and removing the wood behind the jaw and bellow the back of the skull.

After I had sketched the areas I wanted to remove on the wood, I clamped it to a table and got the Dremel Multi-Max and a cutting blade.

Cut along your pencil lines to remove the wood. Don't worry if you don't follow the lines perfectly, this is a rough cut. The cutting blade can cut pretty deep, but you can also just remove small chunks until you have cleared the area.

Continue to sketch and remove areas until you have the rough shape of your object.

A little trick I discovered with the Dremel Multi-Max was that once I had my rough cuts done, I could take the Dremel and cutting blade and go along the edges of my rough cuts to remove sharp edges and round out corners.

Once you've got the basic shape of your carving done its time to switch to the rotary Dremel. Using the carving tools you can go in and start adding details.

For my skull, I started to carve out the eye sockets and noise along with details on the sides of the skull.

The Dremel Multi-Max has a sanding attachment that is great for sanding larger areas of your carving.

Start with a course grit sand paper (60 or 80) and remove any rough areas and smooth out any jagged cuts. Once all the rough areas are removed, switch to a medium grit (120) and finally to a fine grit (220).

Switch back and forth between the Dremel Multi-Max and the rotary Dremel depending on what you need to do. Start big and work your way down to the finer detail.

Hope this was helpful and shows you to to use a Dremel to carve wood.