How Do I Practice Before Carving the Final Piece?

“Should I really make my first attempt on this?” Probably not.

August 28, 2026

There is always a little hesitation before starting a carving you actually care about.

Maybe you bought a nice basswood blank. Maybe you have already traced your stencil perfectly. Maybe the piece is going to be a gift.

And now you are staring at it thinking:

“Should I really make my first attempt on this?”

Probably not.

One of the easiest ways to improve your carving—and avoid ruining a good piece of wood—is to spend a few minutes practicing the important cuts on scrap wood first.

You do not need to carve the entire project twice. The goal is simply to figure out the difficult parts before they matter.

Use Scrap Wood as a Test Piece

Keep a few pieces of scrap basswood near your carving area.

They do not have to be pretty. Offcuts, short blocks, oddly shaped pieces and leftovers are perfect.

Before beginning your final carving, use one to test:

V-cuts

stop cuts

gouge depth

rounding techniques

eyes, noses or beard lines

grain direction

any cut you are unsure about

Professional woodcarver Alexander Grabovetskiy recommends beginners start with basic cuts on scrap wood rather than immediately trying to make a finished object. His beginner exercise is surprisingly simple: make a straight cut, then angled cuts from either side until you can consistently remove a clean chip.

That sounds basic, but those small cuts teach you how much pressure the tool needs and how deep it wants to travel.

Practice the difficult part, not the whole project

If you're carving a Santa and you're worried about the nose, carve a couple of noses on scrap.

If you're struggling with eyes, draw five sets of eyes on one block and carve all five.

If you're trying a new gouge, make several cuts at different angles and depths.

You are trying to answer one question:

“What is my tool going to do when I make this cut?”

It is much better to discover that on a $2 offcut than halfway through a carving you've already spent three hours working on.

Practice on the Same Type of Wood

Whenever possible, your practice piece should be the same species of wood as your final project.

Carving pine and carving basswood can feel completely different.

Basswood is popular with beginner carvers because it is relatively soft, has subtle grain and generally cuts predictably. That makes it much easier to concentrate on technique rather than fighting the material. Mary May's beginner carving lessons similarly use basswood while teaching basic cuts and grain direction.

This shows up in carving communities as well. In one publicly indexed Facebook wood-carving discussion, a carver specifically used a basswood block to practice faces and understand how changing grain affected the carving. Another recent beginner discussion highlighted basswood as forgiving material for building confidence.

If your final piece is basswood, practice on basswood.

Even better, use an offcut from the same board if you have one.

Learn What the Grain Is Telling You

This may be the single most valuable thing to test before starting your final piece.

Make a shallow cut in one direction.

Then make a similar cut in the opposite direction.

Usually, one direction will produce a cleaner shaving while the other may want to lift, split or tear.

That's the grain talking to you.

Grabovetskiy recommends studying the grain before carving and even marking grain changes with pencil. When the fibers change direction, the cutting direction may need to change too.

Mary May demonstrates the same problem while carving on The Woodwright's Shop: one side of a cut can be traveling with the grain while the opposite side is effectively cutting against it. Her solution is to change direction rather than force the tool through the wood.

This is exactly the kind of lesson you want to learn on your practice block.

If the wood suddenly starts tearing, stop.

Try approaching the area from the opposite direction or take a much smaller cut.

Do a Mini Version of Your Final Carving

When you're using a carving stencil, you have another useful option:

practice the same design.

Trace the stencil onto a scrap block and make a quick version first.

Don't worry about sanding, painting or making every detail perfect.

Concentrate on the major shapes.

For example, if you're practicing one of our face stencils, pay attention to:

where you make your major stop cuts,

how much material you remove around the nose,

how deep you make the eyes,

how you transition into the beard or cheeks.

Because the stencil gives you the same starting layout each time, your second carving becomes much more useful than simply starting over from a new drawing. Ronan3D's stencils are designed around this repeatable layout idea, and the tutorials provide a reference you can follow as you carve.

Your practice carving doesn't even need to be finished.

Once you understand the cuts that were making you nervous, move to the good piece.

Make Yourself a Permanent Practice Block

Here's something worth keeping in your carving kit.

Take a flat piece of basswood and divide it into sections with a pencil.

Use each section for a different exercise:

Section 1: straight stop cuts Section 2: V-cuts Section 3: shallow gouge cuts Section 4: curves Section 5: eyes Section 6: noses or facial features Section 7: experimenting with grain direction

Don't throw it away.

Over time, it becomes a reference showing exactly what your tools can do.

This idea is very similar to the practice boards used in professional carving instruction. Mary May even teaches lettering techniques on practice boards before students move on to carving their final signs.

Don't Practice Until It's Perfect

There is another mistake beginners can make:

Practicing forever because they don't feel ready.

You don't need to master every cut before starting your project.

Practice until you understand how the cut works.

Then carve.

Your final carving may still have uneven areas. You may take a little too much wood off one cheek. One eye might end up slightly lower than the other.

That's normal—and often part of what makes a hand carving look hand carved.

The purpose of practicing isn't to remove every possibility of making a mistake.

It's to turn:

“I have no idea what this tool is going to do.”

into:

“I've made this cut before.”

That little bit of confidence can make a huge difference.

A Simple 10-Minute Practice Routine

Before starting an important carving, try this:

2 minutes: Look at the grain and make shallow test cuts.

3 minutes: Practice your major stop cuts and V-cuts.

3 minutes: Practice the hardest feature in the project.

2 minutes: Strop your knife or check that your tools are cutting cleanly.

Then move to the final piece.

You don't need an hour of warm-up.

Sometimes ten minutes of carving scrap wood is enough to save a project.

Useful Videos and Further Learning

Mary May's Carving Away with Mary May is particularly useful for seeing grain direction and tool control demonstrated rather than simply reading about it. Watch Carving Away with Mary May on PBS

Us here at Ronan3D also has step-by-step carving videos where you can see how stencil layouts translate into actual cuts and shapes. Browse Ronan3D Wood Carving Tutorials One good example for learning the stencil workflow is the face-carving tutorial showing several styles of wood-carved faces.

For additional beginner projects, Carving Is Fun provides free patterns along with tutorial videos that can be useful when you simply need inexpensive practice material.

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Watch related stencil tutorials

Pair this guide with Ronan3D video tutorials for step-by-step carving demonstrations and product walkthroughs.

Browse Tutorials