[Underboss]

The plan is to carve a Cactus that is about 3 feet or so in height (maybe 2 and a half). I need thicker pieces of wood to do this, thin pieces wont make it look proportional or life-sized, and I can't simply buy wood from a local lumber yard, they don't sell 3x3x3 blocks.
So my plan is to buy a log from someone with a woodpile and go to (hard) work carving a cactus out.
Any suggestions?

[Lightningbolt]

Wow! A real desert cactus huh? Well, that is cetainly an ambitious challenge. I've carved a few cactus once before as part of a relief carving but never an in-the-round 3-D one.

I don't know the availability of logs are in your area but in western North Carolina there must be two backyard sawmills for every square mile and I don't have to look far for a nice log when needed. Hopefully you can also find such a source. I can easily find white pine but usually prefer a more medium density wood for the larger in-the-round carvings such as maple, poplar, or birch but sometimes I'm just glad to get whatever is available.

Good luck and let us see your progress!

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

There are as many types of cactus or more than there are types of wood! What kind of cactus are you going to carve? by the description, I would assume a saquaro and you could do one out of 4x4's glued...you might want to do a google search on them, because they don't look like what people think they look like up close. You could also carve beaver tail cactus and use 2x2's and 1x4 or 6...as I said, lots and lots of different cacti...Dave

[Colin_Partridge]

When I read the title of this thread I thought it meant actually carving a cactus. I was imagining how hard that would be to do. Then I read on and realized that it was a carving of a cactus. I know, what do we Canadian's know? we dont have any cactus up here evidently they are allergic to snow. LOL
Colin