[Just Carving]

the colour is wonderful, carves well, holds detail, and while it can splinter and chip, you just have to be careful and pay attention to the grain and your cuts.

Opinion on Butternut Please
You know, I read Bob's quote above, and I thought, "That's just about the same description that I would give pine except I would add in that pine is softer. I tried butternut--and I'll continue to carve what I have--but I much prefer pine. And I get my pine from Lowe's--I just pick out the boards with the most interesting grain--the one's that catch my eye. Then I bring it home and glue up the sizes I need. I included a pic of a few pieces of my WIP in pine and finished pieces. The pine used to make Santa was a roughout courtesy of Goody (Decoycarve). Also here's links to pics of the hiking stick I'm working on too.
http://www.woodcarvingillustrated.co...rvin-stick.jpg
http://www.woodcarvingillustrated.co...ck-closeup.jpg
So, if you're having a time getting butternut, head over to your favorite local wood supply place, and browse the pine. One tip though, if you get a board with a lot of knots, and don't want the challenge of carving through them, then work around them by cutting them out, or buy clear pine. I've been doing that, and I hardly waste more than an inch around the knot. I just save the good pieces like Bob (Squbrigg) and sooner or later I use them--the knot blocks I use for clamping pads, toy blocks, etc. Also, carving pine seems to go easier when you think to carve in shavings rather than chips.

[Eddy Smiles]

Nice work! Pine always looks good finished whether you leave it natural or apply a stain.

[gene messer]

I have carved in pine also before .. but let me ask you this ... I found that the pine ( not the white pine ) but the pine in most retail stores has a certain amount of rosin sap in it and it has a tendency to gum up the carving knife with time .. Have you ever had this problem with it ?

I felt I did .. I could be wrong .. but have you ever experienced this ?

Gene

[Plain_Ol_Ed]

Depends on the pine, there's only about 30 different varieties in the U.S. alone.

[Just Carving]

Thanks Eddy. I agree--but most of all the smell is great!!

Gene, I haven't experienced that with my carving tools--but I've only worked with the white pine so far. I have worked with wood that the sap was in the wood like water in a heavy wet sponge. I thought it was pine oil. If you call that tar, well then I still have some pieces--like I said, I save most of the scraps--left to work on. I might have carved in a piece like that but I can't say for sure. Regardless, I strop quite a bit so if there is any pine tar on the tools, it probably comes off.

Ed, is there any sure-fire way in how to tell the difference in the types of pine when looking at a piece of wood? I haven't done much research on the question, but I am just wondering if you knew off hand.

Thanks.

Bob L

[AlArchie]

I'm not Ed, but I'll chip in here.......it's almost impossible to tell the varieties of pine apart once it's milled. A lot of this is due to the fact that there is not much mature pine being cut any more. The traditional clear northern (eastern) white pine was straight grained and fairly knot free due to the tendency of the trees to grow straight and tall in fairly thick stands. This forces the lower branches to die off early and the tops to reach for sunlight...nice straight trees with few knots and fine growth rings. Same with southern yellow pine and sugar pine if you can find it.

Some of the high end suppliers may tell you what type of pine they are selling, but most of the big box types market "pine". No telling what kind.
My bet would be that their higer priced stuff marked "clear" would be white pine. A 1x8x10' piece of this stuff runs about 30 bucks where a lesser grade may only fetch 10 bucks or less.

Modern forestry methods thin pine stands for quicker girth growth, but that leaves heavier growth rings, more low branches; thus more knots.

You may even run into some hemlock marketed as pine.

As far as pitch goes, I've carved some salvaged white pine, harvested in the late 1800's and recovered from a depot built in 1887. While carving this old growth white pine I still ran into pockets of liquid pine pitch.

Just had another thought about some of the pine being marketed. I stopped at our local lumber yard (they used to mill their own stuff) and was looking at some 2x4's. Some had bark (wane) on both wide corners and what looked to be near-pith in the center. Some had bark on the narrow side and pith on the other side. Salesman said they got this load from Canada. I sure hope this is not indicative of Canadian logging practices. What this means is these 2x4's were milled from "poles" and getting maybe 4 pieces from each pole. Pretty funky lumber, subject to warping and splitting.

When their local mill was running I could stop by and order lumber cut to whatever size and species I wanted and have it delivered kiln dried and either milled or rough cut in short order. sure miss that mill!

Al

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

I have carved some pine and found it much harder than butternut. The piece I received from Goody wasn't pine it was paulownia and much softer than either basswood or butternut, maybe you got a piece of the paulownia....another thing beside the pitch I don't like is the hard grain, harder than the wood and creates a problem sanding...softer next to harder wood ? But like Al said, lots of different kinds of pine....the last one I carved was supposed to be eastern white pine...who knows?

[hobo]

David Sabol Carves With Northern White. Suger Pine Is Also Good . Smells Great Too. Good White Pine Is Hard To Beat. On The Other Hand Bad White Pine Is Very Hard To Carve. So Test It Frist. Look At The Grain.

[Just Carving]

Al,

So far, I've only gotten pine which I usually can tell by the smell--hard to miss it.

Dave,

Goody sent me the eastern white pine last year which is in the pic above. I didn't carve the paulownia which was the year before since I was still a beginner.

Hobo,

I haven't gotten any bad pine to speak of--I have gotten pine that I had to watch closely as I carved so it didn't "rip" If I see that it's going to do that, I carve either perpendicular, or from the opposite direction.

Thanks,
Bob L

[Robert Cahill]

Like woodcarver I often go to home depo or Loew's and pick out pine board or even white wood and aspen them laminate them to carve. I have never had a problem with pitch yet but I do check the wood pretty good first. I find that most of the help know even less than I do about pine.