What Woods & Knife

[celt40]

Hi Thanks for the warm welcome to this new hobby. Can you explain to me what woods are best to use for carving. As a woodturner I have lots of different wood blanks, but they are all hard woods. Here in the UK I have not found any suppliers of Basswood. I have 2 Lime blocks, and many of my own sorced local wood like Sycamore, Beech & Elm. Are any of these good to carve.
Also what are the best makes of Knife to get.

Thanks
Dermot.

[Thor]

Hi Dermot and welcome,

Limewood or lindenwood are the European cousin to American basswood. You're lucky to have access to it. Many medieval masters used it as their preferred wood to carve.
Beech is a good carving wood as well.
I don't have experience with sycamore myself, but the colors in that wood do turn out very fine looking carvings. Elm, I don't know about, but any wood is carvable, so I would definitely try it.
I use gouges and chisels to carve, and rarely use a knife at all. That will be determined by what you want to carve.
I hope you'll post images of your work.
Christina

[Buffalo Bif]

Here in America we call it Rock Elm, with good reason. If you are going to be a knife carver, stick with lime/linden/basswood, in my opinion. I'd hate to see a beginner turned of because they selected a hand cramping difficult wood to work with.

As far as what knife, get what you can afford, I'd reccommend a straight cutting edge, wharncliffe blade, under 1.5 inches long. Look for a carving club nearby, they might have some advice on where to buy wood, and may even let us try a knif or two out.
Have fun,

[Robert Cahill]

I have a wonderful book "Carving Nature" by Frank Fox-Wilson that I believe was printed in the UK and the first project was a fish the John Dory carved in Elm. I think he has a project for all the wood you mentioned. If you can find a copy in my opinion it is well worth reading. After saying that I have to add I personally like basswood best as my fingers and wrists do not hold up well to hardwoods.

[chipmunk]

hi, i have carved sycamore a little what i have found the grain runs every witch way and the grains end where they end will raise it's hard to get them to lay down can carve it but theres better woods to use if carvin elm do it sume what green because it will get hard it makes good spoons because it gets so hard very strong

[Gulf Coast Handyman]

Don't know where they will ship to, but here is a link to my favorite knife / gouge. www.drakeknives.com They make awesome tools! (just my opinion)

Dave

[Sean R]

I can also back up what Dave says on the knives from Drake. They are wonderful knives and have beautiful handles. I myself just bought 3