cleaning your carving

[obxcarver]

I have seen where people use ordinary soap and water to clean the hand dirt and pencil marks from their carvings. But I've been wondering if that causes checking in the wood after it dries or is there another way to clean the wood before it's finished. I primarily use bass wood and butternut and never use a glove so there is quite a bit of hand dirt.

[Mitchell]

I've never had a problem with checking or cracking and haven't heard of it happening to others.

Previous thread: Cleaning Up the Carving

[gtech]

I used a no residue liquid clear dish washer for quite some time, but I switched recently to an ecologic concentrated all purpose "no rinse" cleaner that is even easier to rinse, which means that I use less water to rinse it.

No problem until now with checking.

Gilles.

[Scott Hagerty]

I use a scrub brush and Dawn in the kitchen sink on mine and haven't had a problem yet.

[Bob K.]

Checking occurs when the wood dries out for the first time. Washing and drying your carving should not cause any further cracking.

[SlowMover]

You also don't really soak the wood by holding it under running water, I have never had any problem from washing my carvings.

[efmaron]

I use Ivory dish soap and a plastic scrub brush. I put a small amount of soap in a small pan and use more of the suds than water for cleaning my carvings and like to paint with acrylics while still damp have had no problems.

[Jesse_C]

I clean my carvings with liquid hand soap in a small glass of water using a tooth brush. I rinse them under the kitchen faucet. Haven't had any problems.

Jesse

[northwood bob]

Suprisingly, the easiest method of cleaning the accumulateed dust from a finished carving is to spray the piece with Windex and Maybe use a soft paint brush to get into all the crevices. Then flood (rinse) the piece under warm water. This doesn't seem to affect the finish (I do use an overcoat of clear poly). Doesn't seem right to put the piece usder water but it does work. I have several around the house that requrie this every year or so and some that have been cleaned numerous times.

Bob

[Eddy-Smiles]

Well, I guess you could sand it once or twice a year to keep it clean but then again in ten to fifteen years your carving might completely disappear! Ha! Ha! Just kidding! I'll stick to my Ajax liquid soap! It's good for everything from washing dishes, to removing poison ivy oils off the skin, and yes.... even cleaning up carvings!