How-to: Whittle a ball-and-cage

Craft & Design
How-to:  Whittle a ball-and-cage
ballandcage.jpg

Terry Trier has written a good tutorial on carving this classic whimsy from a single piece of wood.

8 thoughts on “How-to: Whittle a ball-and-cage

  1. Carl says:

    My dad did this when I was a kid to show skill, care, creativity and craft. It also had a chain link at the top of the cage.

  2. Brian says:

    and created the not so famous ‘ball-out-side-of-cage’!

  3. mpechner says:

    My dad taught me.
    I did this and used the same exact knife. I still have it as well as a replacement. Schrade knives today is not the same as 30 years ago.

    This book was my bible.
    http://www.amazon.com/Whittling-Woodcarving-E-J-Tangerman/dp/0486209652
    My day knows I inherit the autographed copy. It was a thrill and a let down when Tangerman told me I would have earned 3rd place in a contest if I wasn’t a kid. I was 13 or 14 I think.

    We used to carve chains as well. A challenge is to take a small piece of wood .5x.5x12inches and carve a chain with ball-in-cage every N links.

  4. Anonymous says:

    That Terry Trier dude must be a carving legend,I hope he does cool spoons also.He could whittle me anytime.

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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