Root carvings?

[Mike L Hasler]

So far, I've only found one posting on roots, combined with the majority of the responses on found wood. I have about 1200 liner inches of Mesquite root I'vee been going though, cleaning off the dead wood. Does anyone else work in this medium?Hammer

[cannuckcarver]

Please feel free to post pict of your work...I work with found wood all the time.
I am a stick maker, I also whittle other stuff. All found wood. I never purchased a piece of wood, mainly because of what I do. If you are a carricature carver you don't have much choice...you have to purchase wood.
And welcome aboard.....

[Sharon of the Dell]

My favorite wood to carve is roots i find at the river or the beach. I've carved a couple of woodspirits from them. The only problem is they usually have hidden cracks with sand imbedded in them. The roots are usually extremely hard also.But i usually see some sort of face in the roots. Have fun with your roots and show us something carved from them.

[Mike L Hasler]

Heh Sharon, 've already posted a couple of my mesquite root carvings. And your right about the roots being hard. But they have such great form and color, after sanding and sealing. Do you have any idea of the type of yours? Mine are all mesquite and live oak.

[Mike L Hasler]

Here's a mesquite root after a couple of days of cleaning dead wood off it! The finished piece is on my album.

[Sharon of the Dell]

I'm guessing one was madrone and a couple of others were coastal redwood.Thats a nice looking piece of root! I'll have to check out your pictures.

[Shannon]

I have an old root that we dug up out of the yard - I just saw a woodspirit in there with a gnarled old beard going every which way... It's sitting in the corner of my garage "drying." LOL - seriously - I don't think I'm ready to tackle it yet - but I know there's a woodspirit in there dying to get out.

[CarverFromNoWhere]

I love to work with roots, I often go out back where we have an old beaver pond and there are a ton of small Ash trees that are chewed off and dry it is also very easy to rip them out of the swamp. I have also done pine and cedar roots and some maple and oak.
GoodLuckHaveFun
CarveSafeEveryone

[Mike L Hasler]

Alright you root carvers, How do you I.D. the source of your roots? Here in south Tx. they clear land with bulldozers and 5 or 6 years later, if left undeveloped, the hard wood roots work there way out of the ground.

[CarverFromNoWhere]

I also had my older brother bring home roots when he was working as a logger, they would uproot whole trees somtimes. I did end up with about 3 cords of butternut the winter before last which is now a huge stack since I have sawn it all to dry. Another place I found roots was in our rock piles years ago when the land was first cleared for farming they would pick all the rocks and pile them up also in the piles is alot of scrap metal but I found a number of roots amongst the rocks, they are really hard and I guess they are maple.