[stickman]

I've been carving wood spirits in sassafras about 2inch dia.and the first one I didn't go very deep and the wood carved nice maybe a little harder than basswood.the second one I decided to go a little deeper and I think the deeper I go the harder the wood gets .It still carves good but was wondering if as a rule if that's true with all wood.Its also harder to work your knife the deeper you go.You just can't get where you need to sometimes.so far most of my carving has been done with just an old pocket knife .


I do have some carving tools that I got at a garage sale but they need reground and sharpened properly.I might send them out to be done right because I can sharpen a knife alright but don't have the tools to sharpen gouges and such.

I'll try to post some pictures later today when my lovly wife is around to help me (shes the computed wizzard)

[R-OLDS]

I have carved a couple faces on two different Sassafras walking sticks.
My experience is that it does carve alot like basswood just a little harder maybe rate it with butternut as it does look a bit like it.. As far as being harder when getting deeper that is possibly getting past the sapwood.. I like to carve sassafras as it has much better looking grain than basswood. I plan on cutting a few larger trees of it down here in the near future as the county road weed cutters have damaged a few trees on our property...