Had no idea those were a thing, I’ll be reading up on them, thanks!

This is a new tool to me, I might look to nab a used one off market place or something. Thanks for the suggestion!

Yeah I’ve been meaning to get a chisel set, of the few projects I did I certainly had a few moments where I thought a chisel would be handy.

Indeed, I think splitting the branch will be mandatory to get some carving done.

I’m not sure what would be the best tool to do the carving, however. I’m considering getting some wood scissors, because it’s not immediately obvious to me which power tool could carve out material with a nice mix of accuracy and efficiency.

Hey chad, I hadn’t heard of CachyOS until you brought it up, good on you for finding an OS that matches your needs and going for it

I’m on good ol’ Arch Linux with plasma KDE

I swapped from Windows 10 specifically because I didn’t want to be in the Windows 11 and forward environment. (I use Arch btw)

I really don’t regret it, the set up was really painful but once that was done, the KDE had so many good features that I immediately felt at home. I’m floored by how good Proton/Steam is at handling games, I don’t think I’ve had to skip on any game due to my OS (so far).

OK so you had loads of good advice, but I’ve done a very similar clean up on a branch, and I have the cheapest option to recommend: I’ve debarked my branch with a nail.

The flat head of the nail can be used to ‘crowbar’ some pieces of bark, by leveraging the length of the nail to apply pressure. You can also use the side of the head to push off bark from knots and the side of the branch.

To finish on my projects, I had to eventually use a metal file mill + sand paper. I intend to do more projects like this so I’ll almost assuredly get some of the tools listed in here, tho.