Poplar wood from Home Depot?

[RUssL.]

Very thorough response and very nice carving!
Thank you for helping the guy out and for showing us what can be done with HD poplar.
Very nice.

Russ

[MackTheKnife]

I use poplar from Lowe's for my spoons and lovespoons all the time and have no trouble with it. If you search through the stacks you can find some very nicely figured and colored wood. I will agree with the rest here that it is NOT a substitute for basswood. It has a more distinct grain than basswood and takes some "special handling". You have to be very careful to watch the grain direction and use very SHARP tools. Until you get some more experience I would stay with basswood if you can. It's really not that expensive, and Dale Heinecke is great to work with.

[LIBuck]

thanks for all your responses. i'll give it another try w/ a better knife, and i'll try to cut more shallow at first.

however, i do think that the wood may be too dry... it seems a little brittle to me... of course, i have ZERO experience and haven't found a local mentor yet, so what do i know?!?

[brian-bailey]

LIBuck,

Try putting your to dry wood in a plastic storage box with a bowl of water and put the lid on for a day or so.

The to dry wood will absorb the moisture vapor from the bowl of water and will be easier to carve after a day or so.

I find wood in the 12 to 16% moisture content range ideal to carve. You need a good moisture meter to be able to determine this though.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

"
I had never noticed before-
"Join Date: Dec 1969"!!!

Man, you are a 'Super Moderator'. You joined predating the internet by a few decades! :-)"



RussL......not hardly lol....in reality, try 1998 or thereabouts.....back then, the forum had some problems, one was we were "guests" on here for about a year and a half as we couldn't log in....as for this starting date, I have no idea where that came from.....