whats a good wood for carving?

Re: whats a good wood for carving?

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

Cherry (a fav) cuts like old cheese. Takes a chisel polish beautifully. Done a number of walnuts, the grain likes to swirl. I've known several carvers who look for Linden. A white wood on the soft side that seems to cut well. If you're power carving, hard maple will keep a crisp edge from burrs; not soft maple - stringy. Dogwood is a dream to turn, carves well, splits easy.

Tried Lignum Vitae once. Beautiful stuff; had to sharpen chisels too much.

HTH

Re: whats a good wood for carving?

Bill Howatt

Linden, often called basswood, is a very popular carving wood since it cuts easily and the ease of cutting across the grain is uniform unlike pine with its hard and soft rings. It doesn't have what you would call a spectacular grain pattern so it would rely on the carving to make it eye catching.

Bill

Re: whats a good wood for carving?

jerry bennett

Tupelo

Re: whats a good wood for carving?

john lucas

Darrin I like Walnut, and Mahagony. Cherry and Maple take good detail but you need sharp tools and light cuts because the wood is a little harder. Basswood is about the best and what most carvers look for. I carved my wedding cake holder out of Bradford Pear. Not a wood I would suggest for beginners but it did carve nice with very sharp tools.

Mostly it's learning to read the grain so your carving down hill, and using sharp tools that are refreshed often.

Re: whats a good wood for carving?

Mike Stafford

Don't know much about carving but a friend who carved Christmas Santas which he was going to paint swore by poplar.

Never carved it myself but his results were amazing.

I thought tupelo was just another name for black gum. Never carved black gum but I have turned a couple of pieces of it and it turned beautifully.

Re: whats a good wood for carving?

john lucas

Poplar is great. forgot about that wood. Most of my early carving was done on Poplar. i have a seat blank for a Windsor chair glued up and will some day become a seat when I have time.

Re: whats a good wood for carving?

Chuck Engstrom

Hi Darrin -- Perhaps just as important as the wood species is the matter of sharpening your carving tools. I have not done a whole lot of carving but it is clear to me, from my first efforts, that you will very soon be able to feel the difference between a free-cutting edge and one that is, for lack of a better term, just not quite as good.

Plenty of youtubes available, as well as some good DVDs. Whatever effort you put into learning to sharpen will repay you very generously.

Re: whats a good wood for carving?

John Veerkamp

Butternut (aka white walnut) is used by many carvers. I've turned several pieces of it. It has grain light walnut but is lighter color. Somewhat softer but beautiful wood.

Re: whats a good wood for carving?

john lucas

One of the best methods to determine if you tools are sharp enough is to use a gouge to cut a groove cross grain in soft wood. then cut another groove beside this one so it leaves a cut peak in between the two. If you have chip out in the cut peak the tools aren't as sharp as they should be. They will probably still do the job because I carved for years with tools that weren't sharp enough to do that. However when you get them that sharp your efforts will be well worth it in how easy the tool is to handle.

Neat tip, John!

Re: whats a good wood for carving?

Ralph Watts

Darrin,

A lot depends on whether you are doing power carving or hand carving. Hand carving is best with relatively soft woods as commentators have noted. If you are power carving, it is not so important because good carbide rotary tools will easily cut most hardwoods. Two of my favorite woods for carving are Pear and Bradford Pear because these two woods have very good cross grain strength and thin sections have a better chance surviving (at least with my carving skills).

Re: whats a good wood for carving?

john lucas

Ralph brings up a good point. I assumed you meant hand carving but if your using reciprocating carvers or rotary carvers you can use almost any wood although the softer handcarving woods do work well. A lot depends on how fine the detail needs to be. As Ralph said the harder woods like Pear and apple have very fine grain and will leave really crisp detail. Cherry is also a very good wood for this.

I use a lot of rotary carvers, at least to rough out detail and shape. then I might switch to whatever tool works best for the fine detail. Don't be afraid to use anything that cuts. In my arsenal are fingernail files, jewelers saws, sandpaper glued to all sorts of sticks, and just about every rotary accessory I can find and afford.

although there is a lot of pride and skill to be had from a project carved with only sharp tools, it sure is a lot easier and quicker to at least start with the rotary carvers.

If you really want good carving wood,

Keith Newton

You stated, " i might have to order something for delivery at swat" My suggestion is to carve GREEN WOOD. No matter what species you choose, it will be only about half as hard when it is green.

Besides less work, the fine details are easier to achieve, since the wood is a bit more yielding to the wedging effect of the tool without splitting out ahead of the edge. Then the cutting edge gets to actually cut the fibers cleanly, rather than follow a split that runs out ahead of that edge, sometimes even when you'r slightly against the grain.

It sounds like you are wanting to get thin, which makes the drying checks less likely, when you carve to finish green, then slowly dry in a paper sack.

Re: whats a good wood for carving?

Brad Vietje

Boxelder?

I know carvers who use Basswood, and I've seen beautiful work in Butternut, Walnut, Cherry, etc... I seem to remember that one carver told me once he liked Boxelder, too, which is readily available around here in large sizes -- basically considered a weed tree by most people. Basswood is also common in these parts, but only a few people handle it. If you are forced to buy wood, you'll probably find Basswood more easily than lots of other species from wood carving outfits.

Someone mentioned Tupelo/Black Gum -- rare around here, but what a great wood for turning and/or carving. Way OT, but a friend finished the deck of his 2-person ice boat (Skeeter class) with Tupelo, using book-matched dark heartwood staining pattern to great effect -- fantastic look.

Safe spinning,

Brad Vietje

Newbury, VT

Re: whats a good wood for carving?

Jorge

Brad,

The is one wonderful carving wood that has not been mentioned: mahogany!

it is not a s soft as others, but slices very nicely and can take very fine detail.

I just turned a bowl in sugar maple, that is all around you, love it, quite a good finish straight from the tool, try it. Half way between, soaking green and dry your best bet, once dry still a wonderful wood to work with, but it will be a lot harder.