i think i have bad basswood

[stoews]

I am just starting my second carving, but half of my wood seems very dry and sugarer . It is very hard to cut and seems like it is burnt , I have not gone very far and i am wondering if I should just get new wood, I got this wood from windsor plywood, (3x8x2feet) and it is kiln dried, should i stay away from kiln dried wood?
thanks in advance.

[Smitty]

Hi A couple of years ago I bought basswood from windsor plywood in Winnipeg and found it really hard.Won`t` be buying anymore from them.Here is a fix to soften the wood from a previous post
[spraying a mist of a 50/50 mix of water and iopropyl alchohol will temporarily soften the wood. I've used this spray on basswood, cherry and sasafrass with very good results. One word of caution: it will raise the grain, so I don't use it when I'm nearing the completion of the carving.]

[stoews]

thanks Smitty i will try that. where do you get your wood from?

[doris]

hello stoews, welcome to wci,,,,as you are a beginner in carving, the problem might well be that your tools are not that sharp. i say that, since when i began, i thought too, my wood is bad, but it was not, it was my tools were not so sharp as they should be...so, my advise is, spend a little time to try to get your tools sharper, that will help you in the long run better than the recomended alcohol water mix...

[stoews]

thanks Doris, but i did think of that and have been trying to keep tools as sharp as I can. but the difference from the first carving to this one is night and day, the first one was from different board and only 3/4" thick, or is this something i have to get used to when using thicker wood?

[AlArchie]

Stoews, like any wood, basswood varries from tree to tree and from area to area. Even in the best of northern basswood areas, you may come across a tree or stand of trees that has different (hard or soft or even punky) properties. Thickness of the piece should have no bearing on quality. Could be you just got a bad piece, or it may even be that the retailer got some other lumber mixed in. Aspen can look dead-on the same as basswood but is somewhat harder.

Absent of either of these two possibilities, I'd go along with Doris' line of thinking. "Sharp" is not necessarilly "SHARP". You may have an extremely sharp and polished edge, but the bevel or cutting angle may be steeper than it should be. This requires more force to push the edge through the wood after the cut is made.

Instead of thinking "I'll push this knife into the wood," think "I'm going to push this wood into the knife blade". If the angle of the blade is low, the wood will rise up easilly, like rolling a wagon up a not so steep hill. If the blade angle is high , it will be like rolling that same wagon up a steep incline. The steeper the "hill" the harder you will have to work at getting to the top.

Hope this makes sense at all.

Al

[Claude]

Welcome to the forum, Stoews.

One way to tell if your knife is sharp is to stand next to a light bulb, hold the knife flat so the light reflects off the flat of the blade into your eyes. Now, slowly rotate the knife and watch the edge - when the edge is straight up, you should not be able to see any reflection whatsoever. If you do see even the slightest pinpoint of reflected light, then the knife (or gouge) isn't sharp yet.

Claude

[doris]

hi stoews, a pity i can´t be there and look your tools,,,yes maybe they are as sharp as they should be...but do consider, i thought the whole first year of my carving, that my tools were sharp...they were not, i only then learned , after using them and sharpning them a whole year, what really sharp and perfectly cutting is...
yes, as was pointed out, if the cutting angle is too thich a tool needs more force. i sharpen my chisels with very small angle, so they go nicely through the wood... and, yes, it might be that piece of wood too... do you have another piece of basswood to try out your tools on that ? if they cut another piece of wood well, then you know they are good shapr and its the wood as you suspected

[stoews]

Thanks again everybody, and i have been trying to get tools sharper. Claudes advice on the reflection was great. I did find some of the 3/4 inch wood I used and it does cut and shave alot better, and this thick piece half of it shaves and the other half crumbles and chips, Iwill keep carving and whittling till all of the bad stuff is gone or I am out of blood and see what it comes out as, And i will keep sharpening.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

You can get excellent basswood from Heinecke wood products