accessible carving woods

[cerndog]

Hey folks,
I am looking for easy-to-find woods to carve. I live in Northern California and I have called all my lumber yards looking for cedar decking or posts and no one has any. I know Bass is best, but I have to drive an hour to get it or order by catalog. I like cedar, pine and I may try some english walnut which is all around me. I just wonder if there are any woods I am overlooking that I could buy at a supply store or lumber yard. Any Ideas?

[BobD]

Poplar is a nice wood to carve as well. It falls somewhere between walnut and basswood, but is still easy to carve with a knife. I've made some spoons out of it and it's a dream to carve.

It's usually available at most big box home imporvement stores
Bob Duncan
Wood Carving Illustrated

[AlArchie]

You should be able to find either aspen or poplar in standard 1" nominal (3/4" actual) lumber for relief carving at most lumber yards. I've seen these laminated into wide widths at Home Depot. Or ask for 4" x 4" redwood for large carving stock. Very similar to cedar in carving characteristics. Or try asking about cypress......all the western cedars are in the cypress family.

Al

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

There is lots of aspen up on the mountain, at Lassen....you also have lots of Alder along the creeks and there are humongous sugar pines in Humboldt County if you take highway 36 towards the coast...long drive but beautiful...or at least it was!

[AlArchie]

Ya, Dave, but ya can't go and just cut down those "humongous" sugar pines for a 2' piece for carving! Can ya? Mebbe I better check...might be worth the trip......'sides, I need a vacation!

Al

[woodtrapper]

I am courious what part of calif. your from. I am from calif. and lived in diffderent parts of N. Cal.Certain pet stores carry menzinata and grape vines whih is hard wood and you can get some interesting pieces.Also Lowes carries poplar boards if you want to do a little laminating.Out here in N.Carolnia there are a lot of reclaimed woods in antique stores and habitat for humanity stores. Hope this helpful.

[woodtrapper]

I forgot to tell you that I have a lot of hemlock knots rhodendren sticks or good chuncks.I was going to post to see if anyone wanted to try a hemlock knot and see the different carving styles for faces.

[tgamble57]

I have a couple questions, you are taiking about laminating wood. What is that and how do you laminate wood? Also I am not to farmiler with looking at wood and knowing what kind of wood it is.Can someone tell me where I can get some information so I can learn to tell at least a few kinds of wood by looking at it?
Any help will be greatly apricatedIdea

[AlArchie]

Tim, "laminating" as far as this forum is concerned is simply glueing several smaller pieces of wood together to get a larger piece for carving.

Making sure the two surfaces to be glued are truly flat is probably the most important factor in making a lamination or "glue-up" It's best to run the pieces through a planer, but it can be done with a sander, if you are careful. You can use regular carpenters' glue, Gorilla type glues, epoxies, or white glue. Just follow the clamping instructions that come with the glue, as some require high clamping pressures and some only moderate.

As far as learning to identify the various woods, check this site at Fox Chappel for several good books. http://www.foxchapelpublishing.com/s...Cat=158&step=2

The best bet, as far as I'm concerned, though, would be to go to a good LOCAL lumber company and ask to actually see some of the different species. Ask around and you may even be able to get some cut-off samples. Each species has it's own identifying grain patterns, hardness, weight, color, and even smell. It's a learning process, like anything else, to be able to tell them apart, but most of the more popular species are relatively easy to recognize.

Al

[Mike-in-WV]

If you have any custom cabinet shops near you go talk to the man in charge, very nicely,Lol. They build cabinets out of all kinds of wood and always have good size chunks left over. The same with finish carpenters. Mike