dlb,
If you have narrowed it down to chip carving, I can give you some good information.
Chip carving has been done for a long time in Europe. They used a six-chip style for doing triangles. A guy named Wayne Barton went to Switzerland and learned to do it, and then he came up with a simpler way to do the same thing. He removes the triangle-chip with only three cuts. Wayne Barton is the biggest name is chip carving in the US. He sponsors a set of two chip carving knives. One is a knife that does all of the cutting, and one that is called a "stab knife" which makes decorative cuts. There is a Canadian named Dennis Moor, who is another chip carving guru, who uses the same style of chip carving as Wayne Barton, but who has developed a pair of knives with handles with a different shape.
There are some other places that sell a chip carving knife of the Wayne Barton style. The only change seems to be in the handle. Woodcraft sells one. Flexcut sells one. My strong recommendation is to buy the Wayne Barton pair of two knives. I know a number of people who use them. I use them. You can buy them at Wayne's website which is:
http://www.chipcarving.com/Dennis Moor has a website at
http://www.chippingaway.com/Dennis sells a lot of chip carving stuff including his knives, basswood, videotapes, a border layout template, etc etc etc. It is a useful website, and the folks who work for Dennis are great to work with.When it comes to a book for learning chip carving, there are three books. I heartily recommend that you buy all three. Here is my take on the books. Decades ago, Wayne Barton published some "how to" books but they are out of print. Wayne has a book called "Chip Carving: techniques and patterns". He sells this book on his website. It has great photos, but it doesn't tell you much about technique. I have learned that he has another book coming out this year. I am glad that I have the book, but it has limitations. I also recommend Dennis Moor's book, called "Chip Carver's Workbook". You can get it at his website. It has great photos and much more info on "how to" make the cuts. It is infinitely better than Barton's book, when it comes to explaining techniques for different types of cuts.Then there is Pam Grisham's book, called "Basic Chip Carving with Bam Grisham". You can get this and the other books on Amazon.com. Pam's book also has a lot of information on how to make complex cuts, which is not in Dennis' book. It really is worth having all three books.You should note that Dennis and Wayne use the same approach for chip carving. They keep the knife at the same angle for all cuts (for the most part). Pam uses a different technique for making the basic triangular shaped chip cut. She makes two of the cuts at a low angle and the third at a high angle. What I learned is that I can use the same technique as Wayne and Dennis, and ignore Pam's approach to cutting the triangular chip. But the rest of Pam's book uses the same approach as Dennis and Wayne (for the most part). She really does a great job of demonstrating how to make some complex cuts that Dennis and Wayne don't cover.Wayne has a video tape which I have a copy of. It is worth having. You can get it from Wayne's website, and probably on Amazon, and often on Ebay. It really helps to watch someone else do it. I am sure that you can find chip carvers around Atlanta. Write an email to Wayne, and ask if he knows of any groups or any specialists near Atlanta. I would guess that Highland Hardware knows of a local group of carvers, and from there you can find a chip carver.Besides the two knives, I recommend that you get the pair of sharpening stones that Wayne sells. Actually Dennis sells a very similar set too. They are made of ceramic and they dont need water or oil and they are easy to keep with you when you travel.You will also need:
- a compass for making circles. Dennis sells a good one. you can also get them at any office supply store.
- a T-square. Dennis sells a good one for about $3, as I remember.
- a mechanical pencil
- a soft eraser
- some bass wood to practice on.Dennis' website has all of this stuff, and his prices are good. Besides, he has soft lead for the pencil and the compass. That is good because it doesn't make indentations in the wood. You can get the soft lead at some art supply houses, both in town and on line.I hope that info is useful to you. Please write back. I am happy to continue to give you the benefit of what I have learned about chip carving. Your decisions are completely up to you, but I have accumulated some experience with chip carving that may provide you with information that can help you get started.Happy New Year. Happy chip carving. But remember that chip carving has its limitations. Since it is done with a knife, it is used mostly on bass wood, which is not often used in furniture. When it comes to carving the hardwoods that are used in furniture, it is not possible to use the knives. There are other methods. We can talk about that later.Enjoy,
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot. 

Went to an informal carving group meeting last evening in hopes of gathering some more information. Told them what type of carving I would like to do (found out it's called 'relief'), shut my mouth and opened my ears & took a couple of pages of notes! Concerning tools they suggested that I purchase a few Flexcut chisels, a straight cut knife, strop and abrasive material & a basic carving book. Is this a good plan to follow and if so any suggestions concerning the best place to purchase the materials?

Thanks for your help,

dlb

.

 The undisciplined life is not worth examining.

dlb,
You met with a group of experienced carvers and found out that the type of carving you want to do is relief carving. They recommended some specific knives and recommended that you find a good book. That ALMOST sounds like a plan to me. Meeting with the carvers was the best thing you could have done. Unfortunately you got two suggestions, and they may not match up. Suppost you buy a book on relief carving and the book gives instructions which use other instruments than the ones the carvers told you to buy????? Then you are in a pickle. Basically you need to buy the tools that your instructor (which may be a book) instructs you to use in the carving. So there is a slow approach to this. One is to go to the library and to a woodworking store and look through the books to find one that suits you. Get the book and take it to the next carving club meeting. Show them the book and the photos of the tools that it recommends. Ask them what they think. Another approach is to ask one of the carvers who told you to get the flexcut knives and a straight knife, etc, and ask them to give you some lessons using the tools that they told you to buy. Another approach is just to buy the book that you like best and get the tools that the book recommends. Then go from there.You just don't want to be stuck with tools but with nothing to tell you how to use them!!!.Most of the relief carving books that I have seen show the use of carving gauges. My experience is that knives are only useful in carving nice soft wood like basswood. IMHO, if you are going to want to do relief carving in furniture, you will eventually need to learn to use carving gauges.I am trying to be helpful, but we are at a great distance. Like I said, if you were here, I'd invite you over and you could try my knives and gauges. I'd let you try to carve on basswood with knives and then chisels, then I'd ask you to try to carve a harder wood, like walnut with the knives and chisels. You would quickly find that the knives have a hard time getting through that hard wood.So if you plan to carve things like basswood then, the knives are a good approach. If you plan to carve hardwoods, I believe you will have to use chisels.So go to the library and the woodstore and look through books. Ask the carvers who recommended knives to recommend a book that teaches the use of knives. Then pick ####book and the tools that go with it, and have fun.In the long run, if you continue with carving, you will have both knives and chisels. Don't buy them all at once. Go at the purchases slowly as you need them.Mostly have fun. Let me know how things are going.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot. 

Good starter books would be "Woodcarving: The Beginner's Guide" by Willliam Wheeler, Charles Hayward "Manual of Traditional Woodcarving" by HasluckHere's a starter set and a page I've prepared for people interested in carving, http://www.furniturecarver.com/carving.htmlLee

I have been doing some chip carving as well, just starting out, but I like it, and found LeeValley as a good supplier of knives and information. You need three knives, I only use two so far, and the critical thing is that the knife has to be SHARP, the rest is patience and practice.