Cherry doll by Hanna Hyland |
Ebony doll by Hanna Hyland |
Cocobolo doll by Hanna Hyland |
~ Wood Carving ~
Types of Carving Woods
tips and techniques on collecting,
drying and using many types of wood
compiled by Jean D. Lotz
Copyright © 1996+ Jean D. Lotz last updated - 6/27/02
|
This page is an Internet Carving Community effort - sharing valued information, illustrating photographs, and creative inspiration. Many tips contained in this document were collected from the many contributing carvers on an internet listserve which promotes the free exchange of information relating to wood carving today. |
|
Cherry doll by Hanna Hyland |
Ebony doll by Hanna Hyland |
Cocobolo doll by Hanna Hyland |
Butternut doll by Margaret Hoag |
Eucalyptus Door of Hope Dolls |
Jeff Flecher says - like butternut because of the grain structure and it carves very nice. Mike Wells likes to carve it wet, and makes almost life-sized human busts. He uses hand carving tools because it fizzes up badly with power carving equipment. Margaret Hoag (deceased wood doll artist) found that butternut wood was soft enough to carve with Xacto® knives (kept sharp by frequent stropping) after the wood was first roughed out to size using a band saw. Mike Wells says he has a butternut source in Franklin, Tennessee (right outside of Nashville). He sells it by the linear inch (luckily not the square inch)! I have gotten some really good bargains from him. The problem is that he is a famous carver, and he also does a lot of restoration work, so he is extremely hard to catch at the office. (He owns a lumber mill.)
It is a beautiful grained wood and strong,I like to make swan heads/necks from it - Arthur Gremillion
This is apparently an unusually stable carving wood - Barb Siddiqui
Carving with power carvers: the higher the speed the better. Protect your lungs from the mass of fine dust! Several carvers suggested that you should carve it dry, starting with Chainsaw, progressing though Kutzalls to ruby and diamond bits in an NSK for detailing. Carving with a knife: Other carvers insisted that you should cosider carving tupelo wet with hand tools. You will have to use a *sharp* knife, and strictly slicing cuts, or it will crush the fiber!
I was fortunate enough to get a day off and head into Boston to Rio Rivuma. Rio Rivuma is an exotic wood company that is ecologically responsible in the way they harvest timber. The man that runs the show is T.K. T.K. is from central Africa and is as familiar with the properties and characteristics of these woods as we are the domestics.
After crawling over thousands of board feet of beautiful lumber, T.K. introduced me to something called Kiaat, a golden brown lumber with a slightly sweet smell. There is figure to the grain similar to some mahoganies. The wood carves like butternut(only without the stink!).
This morning I cut a sperm whale profile in the one inch stock I purchased and carved the whale in the style of an old New England sign. The project was completed in three hours. The tool marks were left, not sanded off, to create facets in the wood. The carving was finished with boiled linseed oil. from Robin Edward Trudel President, New England Woodcarvers
I just called a friend of mine who has recently carved in cocobolo. I asked her how it carved and this is Hanna Kyle-Hyland's reply. Hanna has just created a fabulous cocobolo wood doll and sent a photo of it. I will post it on my contemp. wood doll art gallery page soon.
She found cocobolo at a wood supplier who is no longer in business.The wood was sound without a lot of splits and knots.
Hanna only uses traditional hand carving methods -- hammer and chisel carving. She said it is NOT her favorite wood to carve. It looks beautiful when finished so she thought it would be worth the effort. Now that she has carved it, her curiousity has been quenched and she is not eager to work in this wood again.
She carved it dry. She didn't have to change the blade angle of her tools to work this wood.The grain tore out terribly! She suggested working it with power tools might be a better way to avoid the rip outs. But the dust is extremely toxic and powdery. It also irritates the skin on some people. Hanna said that she was surprised at the horrible amount of dust that was produced during the sanding process. Her whole body was coated with the redish, fine, powdery dust. She had a thick layer all over her face and arms. When you concider that this dust is an irritant and toxic - you should take precautions to keep your skin exposure to a minimum and definately wear a dust mask.
Hanna
only uses boiled linseed but any oil finish should work well. She said
that when she hit the wood with the oil, the color and the grain just popped
out - she thought all of the hard work was worth it - but not enough to
go through it again any time soon. From
Jean Lotz (a personal friend
of Hanna)
| William Li responded
to a post on r.c.c. asking about cocobolo:
I buy my cocobolo from Absolutely Hardwoods in Vancouver, B.C. The wood was sound. After one look at the hardness and mineral content of the wood, I decided to use a moto-tool. As long as I made sure that I used sharp bits, the wood was quite easy to carve. I used a bandsaw and a drill press with a Forstner bit to do most of my roughing out.At first, I used a router to do the roughing, but I found that this way generated way too much dust. It's better to get the rough chunks out in chunks, if possible. If you use knives or chisels and mallets to do the roughing, be prepared to resharpen your tools _very_ often. The main advantage of using motor tools is that you can get away with a duller bit to get the same cut. I found nothing quite beat HSS carver's burrs for quickness and quality of cut. I tried using the rasps and a product Lee Valley carries called Kutzall carving burrs. Although they're good for doing roughing work, I found the carver's burrs did a much better job. Besides which, you really don't want to have to carve away big sections of wood, anyways. I did do some sections with my gouges, to get an even smoother surface. (although I found that by making very light passes over the wood with a straight-bladed bit, in a planing motion, I could get _extremely_ good surfaces!) I found that as long as I was patient, I could get the wood to come away in chips and curls, as desired. The thing to watch out for is that some cocobolo can be quite twisty in its grain, so you constantly have to be on the watchout lest you get tearout. The solution to tearout is to make a few light passes with the motor tool and a fresh, sharp carver's bit. Hardness can vary even for the same piece of cocobolo (depending on size). In general, the darker the natural colour, the more minerals are in the wood and the harder it'll be. I would not recommend doing an extensive project in cocobolo with hand tools, as you're likely to become frustrated if you've never worked with cocobolo before. I love working with cocobolo precisely because the wood is so hard and dense-grained: it takes fine detail exceedingly well and, when you apply some pure tung oil to it, the depth of grain which comes out is astounding. Polymerized tung oil can also be used, if you'd like a smoother surface. Because cocobolo is so hard, there are some finishing tricks you can play with it which don't work for most other woods. To get a really hard surface, you can buff the wood itself. Sand with progressively finer grades of paper, down to automotive grade (12000) if you're obsessive or, if you're in a rush, just down to 600 and then polish using a dry soft felt wheel. The felt wheel burnishes the surface a bit. What you need to do then is apply the tung oil (or tung oil sealer) right away, before the surface waxes from the wood come back. I've read that it's advisable to use napthalene to get rid of the waxes first, but I've never found the need for it. Then, a few more buffs and polishes and oil applications later, and you'll have a deep, polished finish to rival a classic French polish, but done with oil instead of the classic shellac. Cocobolo is great stuff. I used the highest speed I could without burning the wood, which varied slightly from bit to bit, but was, in general, the maximum setting on the Dremel, 30,000 rpm. You don't want to use too low a speed, because of the possibility of chatter, especially as your bits dull. Sharper bits can be run slower, and probably should. (~20,000 rpm) If you use the motor tool, you will naturally generate a fine dust. As another person on this thread has commented, cocobolo dust is toxic. On a typical project, you will be spending something like 80-100 hours at a minimum in close proximity to this stuff. I started out carving cocobolo rather naively without a dust mask, and spent weeks afterwards wondering where this annoying rash and cough had come from! The setup I've settled upon for doing carving is: dust mask on, face shield on, ear muffs on, shop-vac nozzle right beside the point being worked on. This is noisy, and you need to get up and rest every so often. (although some days, I managed to go 8 straight hours sitting and carving like this without even noticing the time go by!) However, there's hardly any mess afterwards, and the worst thing that'll happen is you'll end up with a line around your face where your mask goes. Good luck with your carving! William Li |
The wood sawed easily enough on my bandsaw. I laid out two patterns, one for a small brontosaurus and another for a camel. The reddish wood produced a pleasant smelling pink sawdust when cut. The grain of the freshly cut wood was very pretty and I looked forward to getting into the carvings. The wood is slightly heavier than walnut but I didn't anticipate any problems...
I started with my Murphy whittling knife and couldn't make a mark on the wood. The little bit I scraped off was like sawdust. I chucked the wood up in the vice and started on it with carpenter's gouges. Not much better luck. Intrigued by the beautiful grain I was uncovering I dug out the dremel, dust mask and glasses and went outside.
For those of you not near New England, this weekend was beautiful just the right weather for carving outside under a canopy. For roughing in I used an inverted cone carbide bit. This is my favorite bit to get started with because it chews the wood up quickly and the inverted cone shape allows me to cut in the lines I would normally make with a v-tool. I changed to a tiny drum sander to remove the scratches and finished the dinosaur with a teardrop shaped steel cutter. I finished the carving, of course, on linseed oil and polished it to a matte finish.
So,
if you are a power carver, I say give it a shot. For those of us more comfortable
with hand tools and a quiet workshop, skip this one! from: "Robin Edward
Trudel, Woodcarver" Jump back to top
Jean
Lotz on TAGUA NUT CARVING:
The
hardest part of carving small is holding on to the little fly aways! Since
I'll mount the heads on to a wire armature to build a body, I can pre-drill
the mount hole in the neck and thread it on to a handle or a carver's vise.
I have to be thinking 'SAFETY FIRST' all of the time while working small.
You can get hurt faster because your hands and tools are really close together.
I have
a magnifying light but I like to see shadows defining my shapes & planes
as I carve and this light blows away any shadows. But it was used a lot
when I was carving a tagua nut (vegetable ivory) head.
I use
roto carvers and had a hard time using traditional hand tools on such a
hard material but I have very weak hands -- others may not have a problem.
I work tagua nuts with roto tool set on lowest speeds. They scorch easily
due to their oily resinous content. If you start to see golden brown areas
forming as you are using a bit, stop and clean the bit & try to reduce
the speed. If it scorches again, try a different bit.
This
oily resin is one of the reasons I generally do not coat the finished carving
with anything. (But I noticed that John Nelson recommends putting a protective
coat of wax on them). I suspect that tung oil would work well for added
protection against oxidation but it will only sit on the surface and not
penetrate as it does wood. I am planning on adding thinned oil color (WN
acylid colors) to select areas of the taqua nut carving that I'm working
on now; so to protect this paint, I will likely coat this particular carving
with tung oil. It's an experiment, and it will not be sold so I'll be able
to monitor how it works out.
Some
people recommend soaking the nuts several days before carving. I have soaked
and also roto carved them dry. Some nuts are more yellow and oxidize or
darken with sun light. I don't know what causes the darkening -- I'm not
an organic chemist, but I suspect it is exposure to sunlight. I try to
keep mine out of direct sunlight and don't see any obvious golden brownish
coloring developing. Some of this is due to natural color variations in
tagua nuts.
Over
simplifying the carving process: I sand off the outer skin with a medium
sanding sleeve on a drum mandrel, and carve with carbide cutters, stump
cutters, diamond bits, and scrape with a sharp knife. Then polish with
the finest sand papers.
Most
bits run hot and gum up. Sanding sleeves throw out the finest powder dust
that you can ever imagine! Protect your lungs! I had a set of old dremel
bits. Some I had never found useful on wood because they did not cut basswood
cleanly. Amazingly, these worked well on taqua where my diamond bits didn't
work as well as they did on wood. I guess the open structure of these bits
didn't get as hot. These bits have teeth jutting out along the edge of
several straight lines around the bit, like serated knife blades. If you
cut with them they tend to cut in parallel lines. I use a crosshatching
technique - constantly changing directions of the resultant lines to remove
material. They are called "stump cutters". The open structure of
carbide bits make them pretty good at carving tagua too. Don't get carried
away buying a lot of bits right off the bat. Try a few types of bits. Then
invest in more shapes of the types you find most useful.
Tagua
responds well with scraping with a sharp carving knife. So I sometimes
find myself smoothing the shapes with scraping rather than carving in the
final details.
Stump
cutters and Tagua nuts are available from: CRAFTWOODS
Jo
Craemer on TAGUA NUT CARVING
When
you order one of these fantastic stump cutter bits from Craft woods, be
aware that they have several options in patterns or layout of cutting edges
on the bits (or nubs, or whatever the technical term is.) Some are aligned,
and DO create grooves or tracks in wood or Tagua nuts, but they also have
stump cutter bits with the cutting edges "offset" so that they create a
smooth cut. Ask them to check to see if the shape of bit you order has
this option.
John
Nelson on TAGUA NUT CARVING
HOLDING
ON TO THEM IS THE HARDEST PART:
ADEQUATE
LIGHT:
I have
used roto tools on tagua but prefer a sharp scalpel. The trick is not to
try to cut too deeply because its so brittle and resistant to slicing.
Have
you noticed that in the natural state the shade of tagua varies from nut
to nut - quite markedly in some cases. I have "opened" some that are almost
a "Cafe-au-lait" and others almost translucent-pale. The dealer here wont
let me scratch off the skin to take a look before buying. Does someone
out there know how to pick a good-un? Are there any other clues to what's
inside from what's outside?
MORE ABOUT CARVING TAGUA Tagua responds well with scraping with a sharp carving knife. So I sometimes
find myself smoothing the shapes with scraping rather than carving in the
final details. - from Jean Lotz
Yes, this
is my finishing technique also, though I sometimes use 1200 wet and dry
paper and finish off with a polishing of ordinary old craft paper to buff
it up. Occasionally I seal it with thin wax cause have you noticed that
Tagua is realy porous and stains easily. Even people's sweaty hands can
mark it indelibly. John Nelson
Jump to: BONE,
HORN, and TAGUA SCRIMSHAW
WOOD
DRYING: WOOD DRYING KILNS
If interested in an electric
dehumidification kiln, ask the Virginia Forest Products Association (P.O.
Box U, Sandston, VA 23150) for a copy of their $7 booklet on the subject.
My kiln is 6'x 6' x 13' long
and holds 800 board feet of lumber and leaves a tight walkway along the
side. I constructed my kiln with 2 x 6 walls, ceiling and floor. Vapour
barrier and R40 insulation. The inside is faced up with plywood. A tight
fitting door is imperative. Put a small access door at the rear of the
kiln to service the fan and dehumidifier. The dehumidifier is a normal
household model.
In the real cold weather,
(20 F) I sometimes will put a portable electric heater inside for the first
day to help warm the cold wood. Otherwise just the heat generated from
the fan and dehumidifier is all that is needed in my west coast climate.
The size and shape of structure
will depend on:
Jump back to top
Hearing about Jean Lotz's
list of collected wood: Will someone take that woman off the airwaves?
She is making me drool over her list of "found timbers"!!!!
I live in the driest State
on the Driest continent in the World. Exotics come at a very high price
and the South Australian timbers are not large trees to start with, except
the river redgums which have not been treated kindly in the past.
They were cut indescriminately
in the early days of settlement for fuel for the river boats on the River
Murray. Then they were used for making railway sleepers - not sure of your
American name for the cross members which support the railway lines. More
trees (not just the eucalypts) were clear felled in rural areas to make
way for pastures. The early settlers were not aware that we have a drought
for years and only a good one occasionally - little did they know of the
effects of this wanton clearing. We have paid the price in land erosion
and now have a massive tree planting scheme across the whole country.
Other trees were taken to
help shore up the underground copper mines in the north of the state. Some
of this timber is being brought up from disused mines and there are some
turners using the copper impregnated wood but this is mainly on an experimental
basis.
I am still drooling over
Jean's list! Catch you after Sydney when I come back with some samples
of tropical rainforest timbers which are readily available at all our Wood
Shows. There is a great deal of salvaging of these timbers and the slabs
and smaller blanks are irresistable! Put in your orders!!!!!
Cheers, Ainslie Pyne
Jump back to top
COLLECTING:
Sources of wood collecting
FORMOSA TERMITES:
DO NOT collect any LIVE YARD
TREES (at one time you could assume these were safe collecting) or dead
trees in any areas infested with FORMOSA TERMITES. For example:
they are eating trees alive in the New Orleans area. New Orleans is NOT
THE ONLY PLACE having Formosa termite problems! You do not want to take
any carving wood from any area having this problem, you will spread this
terrible insect! I don't think you have to be concerned where you live
but if anyone else wants to collect carving wood -- check with the LOCAL
HORTICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICE for information. From JEAN LOTZ
PRECAUTIONS FOR COLLECTING
IN THE WILD:
Besides the obvious: poisonous
snakes, spiders, and bees; watch out for traces of sometimes leafless poison
ivy wrapped around a downed tree. My father got the worst case of poison
ivy helping me with my last collecting excursion. He told me I had better
make something really special out of that wood. Use heavy gloves with long
gauntlets over a long sleeve shirt even in the summer. From JEAN LOTZ
LARGEST SOURCE OF MY COLLECTED
WOODS:
The southeastern Louisiana
area is being heavily deforested under the guise of beating the southern
pine beetle and due to urban sprawl. So I am always looking for newly cleared
areas. After the loggers take what they can easily sell but before the
bulldozers come in to collect everything else into massive burn piles;
I search through the downed and damaged trees. I have grabbed a lot of
potentially good carving wood. I recently picked up: American holly, Upon
holly, bay magnolia, maple, black gum, tupelo gum, pear, mayhaw and persimmon.
From: JEAN LOTZ
LANDSCAPING COMPANIES
TO SAVE WOOD:
I can second Mike's thoughts
about contacting professional tree cutters and landscaping companies. You
might strike it lucky! Most of the local tree cutters think that I'm nuts
for asking them if they can call me if they need to cut out any holly and
then put any large holly trunks aside for me to pick up. But one guy thought
it was really neat that I carved dolls and sympathized with my search for
large samples of holly. He showed up at my house the next day with 2 huge
holly trees! He told me that these 2 should keep me working the rest of
my life! From: JEAN LOTZ
Jump back to top
It won't matter what length
you have your tree trunk cut to - handling size is the only criteria here.
Seasoning timber is easiest if cut into slabs. Over here we say it takes
an inch per year to season by air drying. e.g., one inch thick - 1 year.
Paint
the ends AS SOON AS YOU CAN AFTER CUTTING DOWN THE TREE. Once the tree
is cut there will be a loss of moisture from the timber. This causes star
checking almost immediately as the shrinkage begins once the air gets at
it.
By cutting into the sections
length-wise you will be reducing the enormous stresses which this moisture
loss is going to cause to the timber. Even cutting it lengthwise in half
will help but preferable try to get it cut into thinner sections. Paint
the ends with oil based paints, we have products here in Australia which
are probably available over your way too.
Jump back to top
I like to carve butternut
wet and then dry it before finishing. What I do is place the carving in
a plastic bag, usually either a trash bag or a Sears bag, and then put
it in the microwave. I nuke it on medium power for four minutes in the
bag. Then I take it out and let it cool out of the bag on the counter for
four minutes. Then back in the bag for another four minute nuke. I do this
four times for a twenty inch tall sculpture, which is almost life sized
(busts), and after the last time I leave it out to cool all night.
I know it sounds weird, but
darned if it don't work like a champ! If you use anything higher than medium
power though, it will burn out the inside of the carving, leaving you with
a piece of charcoal that you have poured hours and hours of work into.
I do advise you to wear gloves
when handling it though, because when it comes out of the first couple
of times in there, that baby is hot!!! Also, long sleeves, because when
you open up the bag a lot of really hot steam comes out. This is advise
that was learned the hard way, so believe me, I know about this.
Also, I like to get a thick
bag to hold my work in progress and for NUKE DRY IT, like a Sear's bag,
rather than a trash bag, because it doesn't seem to get as hot and controls
the moisture loss better.
from: Mike Wells
" I have used the microwave
on smaller pieces. No bag, and the setting was on defrost. Twenty minutes
defrost and twenty minutes cooling till weight stabilized.
I stopped (using the microwave)
when I accidentally set it on high and had smoke billowing through the
house. I haven't lived that one down yet."
from: Clifton Sears
"I considered this approach
some time ago after reading an article on the subject (can't recall where...)
but do remember that the article recommended drilling very small holes
in the base of the carving to allow steam to escape from within the carving
more easily as a technique which might prevent potential damage to the
carving from the process..."
from: Marcel Lamarche
- carver/engraver/gunsmith
Jump back to top
This is a topic that there
are likely many opinions on. I have found that if you can cut to the pith
of a log, this will reduce checking. Removing bark and sealing the ends
allows moisture loss from the wood to be more uniform than by having unsealed
ends. Most of moisture loss while seasoning rushes out the end grain and
this promotes checking. Sealing does help. The smaller the green wood is,
the less time it will take to dry. Keep it well spaced to allow for air
movement. Keep it out of the wind and rain and direct sunshine. Time depends
on climate and wood thickness, old woodworkers around here, being central
Alberta, have said to me. Try one inch of thickness per year for good slow
drying.
I once found two White Birch
logs about 5 inch in diameter and 6 feet long, in the rafters of an abandoned
cabin. The ends were sealed and about 90% of the bark had been removed.
These logs must have been there for at least 40 years. The wood was good
and dry, almost brittle but had very few checks.
The book "Understanding Wood"
by R. Bruce Hoadley contains great information on seasoning your own wood,
I recommend it to anyone that loves wood and working in wood.
Tony Wispinski
Jump back to top
WOOD
DRYING: LEAVE IT IN THE RAIN
Just wanted to tell everyone
that I used to work for a fella that is fairly well known in making spinning
wheels...Rick Reeves from near South Amana Iowa now, and he is the best
on a lathe I've ever seen (I learned from him!!) and he always told me
that he liked to dry his wood outside so that it could be rained on etc....said
the rain helped to dry it actually...perhaps cause it would stay moist
enough not to crack...I'm not sure! the larger you can leave the piece
the better...cause the ends will always check.
I'm sure all this depends
on your climate...this was Northeast Iowa... from: Bonnie GRASER
Jump back to top
WOOD
DRYING: Techniques Jean Lotz has tried
General notes on collecting
& drying wood:
I write the type of wood
and date on the bark with a sharpie pen to keep track of it all.
You should check for bugs
often if you store collected wood in your home. You don't want to introduce
wood worms into your 2 x 4's.
The following is a list of
my trial and error methods:
Prunings are a good source
for mini carving too. I save all of my larger holly prunings. I just cut
them to a manageable size with the bark on, and put them in a box in the
garage. I recently started teaching my 10 year-old how to whittle prunings
on the back porch. Fresh cut, soft prunings are best for the very 1st attempts
but they will not last -- splits, splits, and more splits.
Jump back to top
WOOD
DRYING: Plastic Bag with holes
Smaller pieces can be dried
in garbage bags. Seal the bag and add a tag. After about one month punch
a hole with a pencil. After three months make the hole large enough to
fit in one or two fingers. After six months the end can be opened. Dry
the remaining six months. Has the advantage of less work to dry a whole
bunch of little ones. The ends can be sealed if the wood is more prone
to cracking than normal.
In fact: We use the garbage
bag technique to compost organics quickly. Organics begin to rot in less
than a week here. Jump back to top
CAUTION
USING CEDAR ---- TAKE ALL SAFETY PRECAUTIONS
This is a TOXIC wood, and you MUST take
precautions to protect your lungs from its effects. In Canadian schools,
for example, make-up-air systems (for dust removal) are required in woodworking
shops in part because of the toxicity of woods like cedar, which are used
with regularity in school shop projects. Carving cedar outside or
carving it wet both pose reduced risks to your health.
Chris Townsend states:
Robin Trudel states:
It lends itself to highly
polished, stylized carvings. Anything with detail gets lost. Makes nice
barrettes...
OLD CEDAR POLES:
Clifton Sears states:
Jump back to top
TAGUA
NUTS
I
did a search on everything I wrote about tagua nuts. I have carved a tagua
nut mini cane head for an old lady doll, and a little portrait doll of
my daughter. I plan on carving more of it.
I've
recommended the CRAFTWOODS catalog several times - their dremel- type bits
are shown life-size, which makes it a LOT easier to see what you are ordering.
The "stump cutter" bits are great - they never seem to get dull.
-_-_-_ versus = = = = (A computer artist I ain't!)
from:
Jo
Craemer, Wildlife Carvings, Delaware
John
Nelson is an Australian carver who loves carving Tagua Nuts. Ainslie
Pyne, a wood carver and Australian artist promoter, asked her friend,
John, to add his comments to Jean Lotz's Tagua Nut posting. She even lent
him her computer to do it. Thanks Ainslie.
Yup!
True but I always hand-hold my tagua stuff anyway and put up with the nicks
on my fingers. This might sound a bit spartan or even a bit silly but since
I'm usually using very small scalpels and miniature cutters with small
movements they dot get away much. The only time I tried holding the thing
down I clamped the Tagua nut in a jewellers hand vise and clamped that
to my bench top. Not a success! I couldn't get my face close enough without
hurting my neck and changing the angle of attack was difficult too.
I
lie on the floor of my living room with my head resting on the window sill
of the window (which comes almost to ground level)sit all the tools on
my chest (like the dentist does) This means I have strong natural light
coming over my shoulder and head directly on to the work and it give my
body stability as I do the smaller trickier cuts. At night I lean forward
out of an armchair with my wrists leaning against a sawhorse (trestle)
for stability and a desk lamp set up behind coming over my right shoulder.
This gives good enough light and keeps the shadows ok as the main lighting
for the room is rather weak. I agree that you need shadows to work tagua.
The stuff is so pale and uniform and translucent its hard to see edges
and detail otherwise.
Over simplifying the carving process: I sand off the outer skin with a medium
sanding sleeve on a drum mandrel, and carve with carbide cutters, stump
cutters, diamond bits, and scrape with a sharp knife. Then polish with
the finest sand papers.
Jump back to top
TWO SOURCES OF WOOD DRYING
KILNS (Cheap):
The UW-Madison Forestry
Dept has a report on a low cost, very effective, and widely tested solar
kiln ($2)--it is the same design as developed at Virginia Tech. from: Eugene
Wengert
Bob's Wood Drying Kiln:
Eugene Wengert,
Extension Specialist in Wood Processing, Department of Forestry,
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706
email: wengert@calshp.cals.wisc.edu
If you have any questions just
ask. FOGO - Dee & Bob Lauder - character furniture
No, I don't sell my wood.
But I do suggest that you keep your eyes open and your mind on carving
when you lurk in the woods. I also have some really dead, dried out wax
myrtle trees. I accidently did them in. Bugs and woodpecker holes are to
be expected here!
I have a couple of sources
also keeping an eyeball peeled for good carving wood for me. One is a landscaping
company that clears and mows lawns and stuff like that. Another is a friend
of a friend who works for the power company. They frequently have to cut
trees out of the power lines, and he seems to know a lot about what is
where. I haven't gotten anything from either one of them yet, but they
are supposed to be keeping me in mind. From: Mike Wells
I had a large billet of Aust.
red cedar laminated up ready to carve a life-sized figure of Mary MacKillop.
This started checking even though the timber was well seasoned and had
been in the mill yard for twelve years. The Intergrain people suggested
I try their and when I painted the solution on the cracks closed within
20 minutes. Every time I left the work I painted this onto the endgrain
before taking a coffee break or leaving it overnight. Certainly prevented
it turning into a heap of firewood which was predicted by the timber experts
when they saw the checking start. Cheers Ainslie Pyne
WOOD
DRYING: NUKE IT
I hate to even mention this
to all you folks with these big old high speed top dollar kilns, but I
have a pretty neat little system that I use to dry my sculptures. I got
it from John Burke.
I recently harvested a lot of
downed trees of all kinds. In the past my best wood drying results have
come from leaving the trunks in as long a piece as possible to reduce cut
ends where splitting will occur. I leave the bark on, seal the ends with
melted wax or diluted white glue, then dry them in a vertical position
against the wall in my garage. I dry it for at least 1 year.
from: JEAN LOTZ
Jean Lotz responded
to this suggestion:
from Clifton Sears Carved
figures of lobster fishermen and abstract sculpture in driftwood.
This technique of gradually
adding more ventilation is very sound for many locations. The garbage bag
technique might work if you live in an ARID environment but I live in a
very humid environment (I have wild crawfish living in my back yard) --
mold and mildew are a constant problem. To combat mold & mildew growing
on collected wood I find that I need to use vigorous ventilation on my
wood to surface dry it fairly quickly. I have lost some of my wood due
to mildew already so this sounds like a suggestion I will have to pass
on.
both western red and Alaska
yellow cedar.... carved in the traditional northwest coast style with adz
rather than chisels as native carvers on the northwest coast always have.
I find that both of these woods are easy to carve wet or dry.
Yep, I've carved quite a
bit of it. Big pieces are hard to come by because the wood is very knotty
and checks frequently when drying. I lucked out and got 3 1x8 boards, all
purple and no knots.
I often use old cedar poles.
They are already cracked. I dry them about a month and then split them
into quarters, trying to follow the largest cracks. Another couple months
drying and they are ready. I remove the outside edge and the remaining
wood (already about 30 years old) is very stable. No smell is left in these
poles.
LOTZ
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