Made by Australian company Arbotech, this mini wood carver cuts through oak like butter. It is essentially a grinder with an extending arm and rotating plane on the end. Using the bottom edge of the blade, you cut from right to left in broad strokes, removing the surface of the wood as you go. The circular shape makes it easy to create curved shapes and with a soft touch you can get a lot of detail out of this. This was my first attempt at using the grinder and it took some getting used to but by the end it felt very natural and I really enjoyed it. The chips fly all over the place and mostly right back at you so get some good thick gloves, a face-shield and wear overalls or an apron.
I’ve always used power tools for carving so as I move into wood sculpture this mini-carver is the perfect tool for the roughing out stage. Accompanied by the Dremel for detail, this mini-carver is really all you need to get the general shape out of the wood. I highly recommend it to any power based wood carver.
Below is a video of unedited footage I took while practicing with the mini-carver.