[hojoplus]

Hello I am new to the forum. I have been carving on and off for about 10 years. I was wondering if anyone can tell me is Tulip Popular a good carving wood and if so what kind of carving would it be best for.

[Mitchell]

It's "fair". When dry it can be hard. It has a tendancy to split and check. Fine detail is difficult also.

I carve walking sticks from green poplar, but I have to be real careful of checking. It carves great when green and without fine details.

Not sure how it would carve in relief applications.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

I agree with Mitchell, I have a piece that was sent me and didn't do anything with it, now it is hard as a rock!@ looks good, might power carve...

[mark yundt]

I've used it for quite a number of carvings from reliefs,to full size statues.It does tend to have at times a randomness to the grain or more accurately tends to want to split and splinter more than other woods. In other words if you tend to "pry" up a cut ,,it'll splinter on you.Other than that, it handles pretty well, is fairly dense,,not one of my first choices,,but with some time and effort you can make it work O.K.

[Thomp]

from Lowe's i purchased some 1/2x6"x24" pieces for ornaments also bought some pine in the same measure.

making cookie cutter type ornaments outlining comic book Santa clauses with a v tool and doing some rounding of the charters i found small chip removal worked fine but getting aggressive caused breakage, keep tools sharp and chips small,
when compared to the heavily grained pine i found the pine mess with chipping out and lots of breakage arms and feet just pop off leaving you digging in the chips for the item..

i carved several pieces of sweet gum i found favorable its a little harder than tulip poplar clear of knots straight grain and holds the carving details really well, sweet gum is cheaper than popular as nobody knows of it as much as popular, and is very nice when finished properly,
check with a local sawyer and see if they occasionally run into sweetgum they may have some on hand....

[rick-in-seattle]

The finest walking stick I ever carved was in Tulip Poplar.

It was the trunk of a young tree, I was told the branches and older wood is quite different to carve.

I really enjoyed carving it, and the aged color is a nice gold color.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

Donna (Pyrogite) did a walking stick out of tulip poplar with a dog head and all kinds of things on the shaft, it was beautiful! But maybe the secret is carving when fresh?

[Jace Burnette]

Hey Everyone we have alot of popular around here to. carved easy while green.
Some have beautful color,while other s
are compPETLY WHITE. This is a picture
of a block i split today.
Jace

[Eddy Smiles]

I've been carving canes with Tulip Poplar for a couple of years now. I like to go out in the woods and cut down cane diameter sized saplings, bring them back to the cabin and strip off all the bark, and then store them flat for six months to let them dry out and cure. Each takes on it's own personality when drying with some drying out as straight and true as when you cut them down and some twisting and turning beyond use. When wet they do have a tendency to split and chip. However, once dry I think that they carve very well with the grain amd moderately well across the grain. You just need to keep your tools sharp. The one disdvantage that I've found is that they don't like to take stain very well.

I use the larger saplings for carving decorative type canes, twists, snakes, etc. Again, no real problem as long as you keep your tools well stropped.

[Thomp]

eddy,

do the populars make a knob on the root,
here in la along the creek banks we dig dogwood saplins as they are shallow roots they form all sorts of weird stuff just under the ground.. mostly nice handls or knobs.