Chip carving is done with a special style of knife that is held in a precise angle as you make incisions into the wood. When the incisions join below the surface of the wood a chip is relieved, leaving very smooth facets that create the pattern of the design. The technique can be used for all sorts of decorative surface relief and even lettering. When the chip is removed the void that is created can have varying numbers of facets, most commonly three, or sometimes four, but even two facet voids are common. Much of chip carving is repetitious in its creation of repeating borders and other designs, but patterns of a more freeform nature can be adapted to this type of carving as well. The Celtic Cross you see here is one example of such a style.

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