Introduction
In a few steps I will show you how to carve sculptures with YTONG. As an example I’ll take an American Bear (or something that looks somewhat like it).YTONG is a very soft, artificial made stone that has high resistance against high temperatures (I once build an oven with it), it is a very good isolator and (and now we’re here) it is very easy to carve.
Only (small) negative side effects are :
- Your skin gets a little bit dry (but regurarly washing your hands with a soft soap avoids problems and one can always use working gloves!)
- Your clothes, room, cat, lungs,... become covered with a white snow (Your local laws might prohibit working with Ytong in unventilated areas). If you can, work outdoors.
- It can easily break apart (so treat it with care !)
What you need
- First of all you'll need a little bit of documentation
about
the subject(s) you want to carve. Google images come in
handy, or maybe even some encyclopedia books (yes, a book still
exists!)
Remember that you are creating a 3D object, so you must know or recreate ALL views of your subject (up, side, back, front, ...) -
Secondly you need a minimum of handy tools (absolute minimum is a
screwdriver and a saw).
Here 's a list of the tools that I use:1. A small stone chisel (or an electrician chisel) 
2. A hammer to use the chisel (what else?) (a small one) You know what a hammer looks like 3. A cheap wood saw (cheapest possible, ytong is very easy to saw anyway) If you don't know what a saw looks like you probably shouldn't try this course 4. A scraper, normally used for PVC tubes, is excellent for rounding edges in Ytong 
5. A pencil to draw your sculpture on the Ytong block If you've never seen a pencil in your life, you should stay away from your computer more often 6. A few wood carving tools can come in very handy, of course you can use a screw driver as well.
For the morons: DON'T ever use wood carving tools with a hammer!
7. A vacuum cleaner to clean up the dust AND to clean your sculpture when all work is done.
Get a clean block
Once you have a subject for your sculpture, you take your saw
and cut out a block of Ytong. In my case, to make my bear, this was a
block of 20x25x10cm .
TIP: When you use the saw, use it gently
and let the saw do its job, that way the block won't break at the place
it was not
intended to.
If you want to, you can cut out the block with a chisel, but a saw
gives the best result.
Draw your sculpture
For this step you'll need a little bit 3D imagination and you
should use the documentation of your subject (If your subject is not
all in your mind, that is.)
Draw with a pencil all contours of your subject on all sides. For those
who have difficulties with 3D shapes, try to start with a relief (which
is 2D). For young children, aged younger than 12, two dimensional
sculptures are recommended.
I didn't have a view from above of a bear, and I don't have
any bear in the surrounding 10 kilometers
to see what it looks like, so my view from above is a sort of guess.
Use your saw
To create a main, rough working block you should use the saw.
Always leave a little extra space which will be used when we get into
detail but not with the rough work.
As you can see above, I had trouble in cutting the part in
front of the bear,
this will be something I keep for the next step.
Use your Chisel
Main problem with Ytong is that it can break at the place it
was not intended to.
YOU ARE WARNED! Don't ever skip this step, the main reason it'll break
wrong
holds in this step.
Gently chisel out all pencil lines on your block. For the
finger-killer-minded people: one
can also use a knife for cutting out these lines. Every carve is
maximum half a centimeter deep.
As you can see some edges came off while I was using the
chisel.
For the dangerous parts (finest details) I leave some extra space, for
example in front of the bear
TIP: The "good" part of your subject should always be the
closest
to you. Try to use your chisel in a small angle towards you, this way
the "bad" part of your subject
will cut off better.
Roughly cut out your subject
Mostly I used the chisel for the edges and the wood carving
tools for the rest.
TIP: To make holes (like the ones between the legs of the
bear) you have to turn the carver round (like a bore).
Use your wood carver
For all details and adjustments you can use the wood carver in
combination with the scraper.
TIP: To round edges I normally use the scraper. On places
hard to reach you can use the carver.
You should rush smootly over the surface and all superfluous particles
are gradually removed.
And finally (tadaa ahum?) the result:
