Tool Mark Impact From A Wood Shaping Tool

In wood carving should tool marks be seen on a finished piece of art? Know that these marks can impact the value in art and thus the beauty. All wood shaping tools leave marks but not all are equal.

First let’s define what a tool mark is in wood carving. This mark occurs when man made tools alter the surface of the wood leaving behind signs that the tool was there. Chatter marks are common from blades of planers. Cnc surfacing marks are another when a wood panel was surfaced. As a buyer you need to know what you are seeing. As an artist you need to minimize undesirable tool footprint.

Wood Art Compared to Other Carpentry

While surfacing marks or chatter is obviously undesired in any circumstance, are there times when you just cannot help the marks created by tools? Indeed there are times when there is little you can do. Controlling this begins at the early stages even in how the wood is prepared and cleaned.

In more general carpentry a wood slab can be sanded down to remove all marks. Often these slabs are used for things such as a table making and it is easier to remove these marks. When creating wood art if you apply too much sanding it could destroy the overall work in an attempt to remove them.

Let’s face it, small artists are not working in a commercial shop. In the old days when carpenters conducted their woodworking they too would leave marks from their tools in the wood. It was a given.

Commercial machining has given a new edge in the ease of eliminating this. Smaller wood shops have it much easier than the old timers as modern tools have allowed leaps forward in how we finish our work. Nevertheless at times stray tool marks will remain.

Are these unwanted? The answer to this question will depend upon who you ask. If a buyer does not want it then their answer is that it is unwanted. Yet for me it really comes down to what kind of tool mark it is, and where.

With wood art these marks are far more challenging. Most will never be seen by the average buyer, maybe by some collectors, always by another woodworker. If you turn wood you just know where to look.

For the wood artist, the absolute worst tools that create tool marks would have to be a cnc first then a router ranking second. Wood is not obedient to our desires and some species are better than others.

I have witnessed material being removed and then a board begins to bow causing that work to end. The causes of tool marks are not always dull blades or bad process. When working in a small studio rather than a commercial shop you really begin to understand how different species and its grain can impact an outcome.

Acceptable or Good Tool Marks in Wood Art

I will drive this topic down further later at how to minimize tool marks with the tricks I have learned. If you are interested in seeing a common issue being discussed about sanding tool marks you can read more here.

For now lets discuss what is acceptable in wood art. If removing the mark will mar the overall artistic creation within the wood then leave it.

If you must then discount the final product. If it is minor then never worry about it. As for me there are some marks I have always considered character being placed within the wood just like the woodworkers of years gone by.

The right tool marks can tell a story of how the work was created. Marks such as where the blade cut a letter for the artwork. Sand lightly as to not ruin the letter in order to make it look as good as possible yet if it remains then it is character. Minor tool marks should be expected in wood art.

How to Use Tool Marks in Wood Artwork

Now I want to twist the minds of some wood workers out there. Is there ever a time when you want there to be tool marks? As for me, absolutely yes when it applies to wood artwork. The pagoda image will show you why, but I will explain it by how I learned this.

I have known painters for most of my life. The artwork they could produce with paint or even pencil was amazing. Yet this medium allows for something we cannot use in wood, shading. Shading gives depth, it allows for a flat piece of paper to appear as someones face or a ship sailing across the water.

A wood canvas as so to speak cannot achieve this. Wood canvas is unique and often its own natural work of art. Nevertheless when it comes to wood it is a 2 dimensional surface that really allows for 2 dimensional work and no way to shade with wood carving.

As a wood artist I hate using paint on any work. I also hate wood burning, it just is my preference. I prefer to stain my work in finishing. To create contrast I discovered ways of being able to use multiple colors of stain on a single work.

There are ways of preventing the colors from bleeding to where they should not go. Yet the problem could still remain that the wood art itself lacked definition. It all blended into the wood preventing what I wanted from being the focal point. I wanted more value in art for my creation.

I found my solution in how I sanded the work. By using coarser pads to sand it would open the surface of the wood and this area would stain darker. The finer pads when used would smooth the wood more and the stain would be lighter. While this is not as perfect as shading, it did allow for me to at least highlight areas of a work that I wanted to stand out from the background.

While there is no real “tool mark” as so to speak, every woodworker knows that rougher sandpaper will leave behind its tell tale of passing across the wood. In my case it was needed and desired to create a visual effect on the wood.

The unfortunate part is that eventually some wood guy out there will find my work and immediately say “he never finished sanding this but its pretty”. For the buyer or collector they will admire how the wood contrasts the art and never notice the sanding while maybe wondering how I did it.

There is no rule book on tool marks. Clearly you do not want to see marks on your dining room table, bar, or counter top. The slick glass like finish is what we have come to expect to see.

It is a uniform surface that is supposed to look this way and justifiably so. Yet when one is trying to carve a pagoda out of wood and have it accented from the background other methods are needed.

Common Sense Will Rule The Day

While there are no rule books on what is acceptable or unacceptable use common sense by what can be character or what should be removed. As a buyer your taste matters.

An artist will know every flaw in their work. We obsess over them. Our goal is so that you never see them. Yet there are times when you will. Nevertheless the style of work will often dictate how much you will see.

If you are looking at older country art or mountain style artwork then you will see a more tool marks. It is mimicking the way work was done in the older days. This would be common sense and to be expected.

A style of rustic art will be much the same. I personally like to blend the rustic with the modern in wood art as I can. I enjoy living between those two worlds with my artwork. I like the fact that one can see it is not a mass produced item on some multi million dollar machine. At the same time I want to make it as beautiful as I possibly can.

Here is where multiple worlds meet. What is the artists intention? Then what is the buyer or collector wanting? Naturally everyone hopes to meet in the middle to make an exchange but this will not always happen. We all hope that our artistic creation will find a home that can admire the beauty in how we sought to create it.