dried or green

[wabbiter]

whats the best wood for a beginner like myself to work with and should it be dried or greenThank You...mack

[Plain_Ol_Ed]

Depends on what you are wanting to carve/whittle. Much of the carving from your part of the world is done in English Oak (if there's any left after building the Victory) or other hardwoods and left unpainted. By carving I mean decorative or statuary. If you want to do "American style" whitting/carving lime is what most folks seem to use. Whichever, dried/cured is best for a beginner. Green presents another set of problems to deal with. Not difficult, but just one more thing to deal with. Kind of long, rambling, and not definitive. Hope it helps.

Many more opinions from other folks will follow.

[Mitchell]

Green wood is generally much easier to carve. It also is not popular to carve green wood because it will check/split as it dries.

You can take it one step further - instead of "green" you can carve "wet" wood. David Sabol uses this method - as did Emil Janel. This method is a little safer (well, not really safe, but more reliable) as the wood will not be as susceptible to splititng and checking.

[wabbiter]

I've quite a bit of silver birch,sycamore,pear,apple and plum are these ok....mackCheers

[hruukki]

Hi, I've carved some birch (not sure if the exact same species) and of those you have, it must be the softest - so probably easiest to start with. Pear has been used for brilliant sculptural work. You can put a lot of detail into applewood but it's really hard. Plum is probably in the same category, being a fruit tree. It grows slowly, doesn't it? If it does, it has tight grain and is good for detail work as well.

Maybe you could save the harder timbers (pear, apple) for some time until you have some experience: you can really work wonders out of those.

What/how are you planning to carve - clamped to bench or hand held?

Henri

[R-OLDS]

In my opinion all the wood(s) you just mentioned are quite HARD and I would not suggest carving any of them (by hand). Unless over in the UK they are different but in the states all the wood you mentioned is not popular wood for carving, basswood (lime) butternut, catalpa are all excellent woods for carving IMHO..

[wabbiter]

Originally Posted by hruukki

Hi, I've carved some birch (not sure if the exact same species) and of those you have, it must be the softest - so probably easiest to start with. Pear has been used for brilliant sculptural work. You can put a lot of detail into applewood but it's really hard. Plum is probably in the same category, being a fruit tree. It grows slowly, doesn't it? If it does, it has tight grain and is good for detail work as well.

Maybe you could save the harder timbers (pear, apple) for some time until you have some experience: you can really work wonders out of those.

What/how are you planning to carve - clamped to bench or hand held?

Henri

hand carving mainly, so i'll try some softer woods, cheers...mack