20-Minute Whittling Projects: Fun Things to Carve from Wood (Fox Chapel Publishing) Step-by-Step Instructions & Photos to Whittle Expressive Figures; Wizards, Gargoyles, Dogs, & More for Gift-Giving

Fun projects , great illustrations

Exactly as descirbed

Note: This book assumes you have access to a scroll saw: before carving most of the patterns, you must first trace the pattern onto your wood and then cut it out using a scroll saw. (Given the size of the carvings, a band saw won't work well). You could do the projects without using a scroll, but it is very tedious to cut off all the excess wood by hand. Also note that this book is about carving scrap lumber rather than sticks collected in the wilderness.If you have access to a scroll saw and scrap lumber, this is a good book for beginners. There are helpful directions which explain how to move from block of wood to carved elephant, for example. The author provides helpful steps such as: round and narrow the trunk, add stop cuts around the ears, etc. Since the patterns were two dimensional, it would have helped to be given a hint about how thick the piece of wood should be.I did find the book to be a bit redundant after a while. Once I had carved an elephant, I understood the process necessary to carve a bear or fox instead; I didn't really need the directions for these later pieces, and I could make my own pattern from a profile photograph of the animal I was carving. I give this book 4 stars because, even though I could have figured out most of the material in the book on my own, I didn't make any serious effort or progress on my whittling until I used this book.

Wonderful book full of great projects. I am a beginner and this book really is usable for me. I would think anyone just starting would get a lot out of this book.

This is a nice book for beginner whittlers

Front half of the book is great. After that we’re expected to use power tools to create a sharped blank to then just whittle the corners off of? What is this?

Easy to follow. Lots of good easy projects

Doug Linker often talks about Tom Hindes in his videos. I can't give a better endorsement than that. All the projects in the book are great and yes, one of the chapters is the renowned 5 minute wizard. Buy this book. You need it!