Back to life

[sgtusmc]

The question I have is. how do you bring a piece of wood back to life?

The shield your looking at is about 30 years old, it has been sitting down my basement for that long, it is a very dry basement, I started carving it again only to find that the wood has become very dry, to the point where hand tools do not seem to work very well.

Is there any thing that I can soak the wood with to bring it back to life, the wood itself is pine and laminated.

ScooterMotorcycle

[dmatias]

When I took a course with Honky he said the best way to do this was to mix 50-50 distilled water and rubbing alcohol. It has worked every time when I have needed it. Just spray the piece and let dry. Spray again if it is realllllllyyyyyyy dry.

Other carvers I know have tried it after I told them about it and has worked wonders on some pretty old wood. Don't know about 30 year old wood, but it's worth a try and can't harm your wood.

Take care.

[sgtusmc]

Thanks for the tip, I think this time, time is going to win out, lucky for me I do a lot of power caving as well as hand carving, I switch back and forth depending on the caving. this time the power comes in handy.

Again thank,

BobMotorcycle

[Alice in Wonderland]

Hi Girlcarver, this is another girl(oldwoman)carver thanks for the tip would it work on non carved dry wood too????
Alice

[sgtusmc]

One good tip deserves another, this was sent to me via the Internet.

If you get a wood splinter, put Elmer's glue on it, and let dry, I guess when you have nothing better to do, let the glue dry, then peel it off.
The splinter sticks to the glue, the splinter come out with the glue.

It doesn't say how it feel when it comes out. or how big the splinter was. I would imagine most carvers have more cuts than splinters.


Just to let you know I haven't given up on that 30 old year project.Motorcycle

[dmatias]

Hi Alice;

I have used this technic on non-carved, carved and just plain terrible wood and it worked in all cases.

A carving I did of the Van Helsing Village, the wood kept splintering when I was doing the detail work on the castle and this technic saved alot of heart ache and time. Give it a try - it can't hurt anything.

[sgtusmc]

Well, I finally finished the 30 year old project, actually it was laying around for 30 years, I sprayed it every day, it seem to help, my real problem was with the caving in the middle of the shield, when I tried to put the scales on they chipped to easy, so I had to back away from putting to many on. but all and all It came out OK. Thanks again.

Scooter Motorcycle

Its time to put down the tools and start riding.
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[Al_Hillis]

Hey Scooter , just wanted to add my little tip that a carver friend passed on to me. He was finishing a relief carving that he had started 40 yrs. before , the wood was black ebony we believe. He say that he had collected or purchased over six hundred dollars in tools to try to finish the piece . It was so hard that it was dulling tools on one cut. His wife gave him an old squirt bottle of hair spray to throw out and on the way through the shop he decided he would spray some on the carving (Got alcohol in it right) . He said it cut like butter , brought some for us to try and he was right . even end grain was easy the next morning. Every one at the carving club now carries dollar store hairspray whether they have hair or not,.. LOL