I began carving with the Tagua Nut and I know why my tutor at the time introduced us to carving through it, the Tagua Nut I feel is a great material for beginners to learn from.
About the Tagua Nut - The Tagua Nut comes from the Ivory nut palm found in the tropical rainforest's of South America, it has a brown outer layer and also has a little hole that can get in the way of carving, so when designing you should think about how to incorporate it. They vary in size but for the most part are the size of large plums, over time the color of the nut darkens and I've also noticed some shrinkage.
You can probably find the nut at your local woodturner shop for a few bucks each, if not they could probably ship some in, you can also order them online.
Preparation - There really isn't much, sand off the outer brown layer to reveal the ivory colored material and you're ready to go.
Tools - A lot of people use power tools such as Dremels to shape their carvings along with fine sand paper, needle files, vices and grips. I'm a hand tools man myself and use homemade tools for my shaping.
How to make the Tool - The hand tools I use I made myself, they comprise of a hard tool grade steel (Cobalt Super Blank Stock, most probably), epoxy glue and wood for the handle. I've only made these tools once, I made a set and I'm still using the same set, so the process of making them is a little hazy. The one aspect I'm a little hazy on is if I heated the steel to make it harder. I've searched on the net for the tools I made but haven't been able to find an exact match, I maybe giving away someones secret, sure hope not. The closest I could find were Gravers, but they have a straight edge and I haven't used them before, they look like they could give the same result.
Making the tool should be straight forward, get a piece of wood, drill a hole for the steel to fit into, fill it with epoxy glue and force the the steel into it and let it dry. After that you can shape the handle to fit your hand and create the point on the steel that you'll be using to carve.
What you want is two curved edges that come to a point like in the photos provided, use a grind wheel to get the desired shape and then a fine grind stone to get it sharp and smooth.
Carving the Nut - The great thing about the Tagua is it has no real grain to it, so no matter where you go with the nut it wont resist, unlike materials such as wood and bone where you have to take into account the direction of the grain for your designs.
The other thing to take into account is the little hole that each nut has, some cases you can sand it out, but because there's not much of the nut to work with anyhow, incorporating the hole can be a challenge.
With power tools the job can be quick, shape it out, file it and sand it to a final product, you may have to use vices and grips to stabilize the nut. The thing I don't like about using power tools is a lot of the time it comes out looking machine made, but I guess it all depends on how good the user is with the tool. This is why I like using hand tools, you get much more fine controls over the shaping, you get to take your time with the material for best possible results.
So using the hand tool that I described how to make could be a little hard to explain unless shown, but I'll try my best.
There are two main types of positions with this tool, the first is using the point like a chisel, pushing through the material to make a groove, though with the Tagua you may find it can chip is as you go. The second is by using the curved edge to push along the surface of the material, cutting slightly into the material while allowing the tool to follow its own curve, pretty much shaving flakes from the nut, this way you can be less concerned about chipping.
After you're happy with a form you like, all that's left to do is sand paper it to your desired smoothness and you're done, maybe a little polish.
Here's a carving of a Griffin that's about half way done followed by a selection of nuts.
So I hope you liked my little guide on how to carve with Tagua, I'm sure you could take the entire thing as a metaphor for something dirty, LOL I sure hope not. I feel that carving with Tagua Nuts can be a very easy, hastle free experience for beginners and experts alike, it's one great resource.
If you have any question or suggestions (I'm sure I've left something out) please feel free to leave a comment.
