Whittlin' Chip Patterns

My den is going to earn the Whittlin'Chip Badge on Thursday. Does anyone know of any easy pattern and the best type of sope to use?

Cheap soap! Actually I've always used Ivory.

I don't know of any patterns you can copy, but look in the BSA catalog at the selection of neckerchief slide kits for some ideas.

Our pack has a Whittlin' Chip box that we pass from den to den. The box has a bunch of wooden knives a dad made in his shop. (I've seen tounge depressors used for the same thing.) It also has a bunch of wooden blocks wrapped in sandpaper used as whetstones for the wooden knives. Using that to teaching boys how to sharpen sure saves resharpening the real knives after they wreck the edge. After they've mastered the wooden knives, they can try the real thing.

Thank you very much, I never thought of themithe edge of the knife sharpening it. But you are right they sure will and it is safer too!!!

Kinda ran out of time last night, so let me add a couple more things --I always turn Whitlin' Chip into a two-meeting program. The first, we do knife safety, care and sharpening and first aid. The second meeting we review the first and then carve something.

With the older boys, I let them carve real wood, usually a neckerchief slide. Use something soft with even grain like poplar, basswood or fir. White or sugar pine us okay and cheap, but stay away from yellow or southern pine as it is very difficult to carve. I come up with two or three designs (we've made boots, christmas trees, PWD cars and arrow heads. I always pre-cut the wood on the bandsaw so the boys start with a blank similar to the BSA neckerchief slide kits. The one thing I add, however, is a handle. When you cut the blanks, leave a 4-5-inch piece of wood attached to the blank. This gives the boys much more leverage to hold the piece securely and keeps fingers back away from the carving area. After they finish carving, we cut the handle off with a small handsaw.

Use a small piece of 1/2-inch plastic pipe hot glued to the back to poke the neckerchief through.

thank you very much for your help. Your ideas are very helpful!!

Thanks for the ideas. I have been pondering how to fo about the whittlin chip.

Katrina