Wanted - Discarded Christmas Tress

[kdispoto]

I'm thinking about going down to my recycling center to pick out a few discarded Christmas Trees to use for carving Santas out of the tree trunks.

What types of pines work best and what suggestions do you have for preparing them?

[Claude]

Having collected Christmas trees and recycled them for the Scouts for a few years, I'd say you're going to find most will be full of knots (lots of limbs = good Christmas tree), and also full of pitch. I think a better use for them is to wire (use copper) a concrete block to each one, and heave into a reservoir where water depth is about 30 feet. Makes great habitat (hiding places) for fish.

Claude

[Dkulhanek]

I'm going to have to agree with Claude. As one who has worked Christmas tree lots for several years with the Scouts, I can attest to wrecking a couple of hacksaw blades from all the sap. Makes for good fatwood for fire starting though!

[oldbearx2]

Since my yard has very few larger trees, I get several each year and place them in a semi circle around my bird feeders. Makes great hideouts for the birds. I did try to carve some of the wood once with very little success. Like Claude said a lot of pitch and knots. Makes good firewood though, which is where mine always end up.

[kdispoto]

Thanks everyone for your sharing your experiences and concerns, but then how do you explain the success of Bill Evans of Brownsville, Pa?
santa carvings by bill evans

[Goody]

One or two for the novelty of it is fun anything more than that is a pain. The tricky part is drying them. The best success I had was to soak them in pentacryl and then put them in buddys solar kiln for a month. Set aside a whole separate set of tools the sap and pitch in pine will lock up your bearings in your foredom handles, clog up your burs like concrete, hard on your edgeded tools, and you will ruin some clothing along the way. I did them for three years the third year I did about 25 of them. They just don't feel good in your hand. If you plan to do peoples tree trunks for them a good deal of the time it won't be what they wanted. You just can't do magic to a gnarly knotty split piece of sappy wood.
Sure does smell good when your carving them though!
Goody

[cut up]

With Goody's comments on what the sap does to the Foredom, I'm wondering if Bill Evans does his carving with all mallet tools. Looking at them I did notice that most of them, with a few exceptions, were in the 12" to 16" tall. Is there that many knots in the truck that would make it difficult to carve? I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud here.
Michael

[Bob K.]

Gotta agree with Claude on this one!

[Claude]

Ken:
One last bit of advice: if you really want to try, go get a couple of them (or at least saw off the bottom of a couple) and try it. The fact that I wouldn't do it, doesn't mean you shouldn't try! If you find a couple of secrets to get around the knots and pitch, please let us all know.

Claude

[kdispoto]

Once again thanks for your words of wisdom. Regarding Bill Evans - thought you all might like to see this news video I found on him

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