Favorite carving wood

L

LG&M

Joined
Dec 19, 2005
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I am sitting in my back yard with my 4 & cold beer watching my fire.
I was making some shaving with the 4 on some cedar ( fires already going I just like making shavings). I thought this is about the best wood I know of for carving. Cuts nice, smells great, looks good.
What if any do you like?
 
By far the best for carving is Bass wood, it comes from the Linden tree. It is soft, and has a fine grain, very pale color.

I agree about the cedar being nice to whittle on, love that smell.
 
Birch and beech, I just like how the bark comes off but it carves up nice. I guess because of the grain? Popular is fun too but I feel like it's easy to take a lot of it off when you may have only wanted to take of a little if you're using a bigger knife like the 4.

On the flip side, ash is my most hated. I mention it because it's everywhere by me... at least the dead ones the ash borers have killed. Crazy grain, hard, a PITA. Makes a heck of a baton though (that you'll probably break trying to baton through the next piece of ash you try to work on).

I generally stick to what I can find in my back woods and usually I try to stick to stuff that's already dead or is dying. I don't really carve much green stuff as there are just too many deadfalls (unfortunately, most are ash) to bother going after the green stuff lately.

Here's a quick wood carver's take on some I found in a quick google search
https://www.woodcraft.com/blog_entries/wood-for-carvers
 
I used to use the wood from the ends of fruit crates. Each piece was different. If it didn't carve nice it got tossed, some of it was real nice to whittle.
 
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