woods NOT for power carving

[frankjay02]

Hello folks,
Are there woods that aren't any good for power carving?
I have been practicing on pine and it doesn't hold detail.
Any help will be appreciated.
Frank in NJ

[Donsexton]

I would say it depends on how small the detail is, like yellow pine no detail smaller than a pea.

[Claude]

Most of the evergreen (soft) woods are less suitable for small carvings. For large carvings, done with chainsaw and die grinders, evergreen is ok, although pine tends to have pitch pockets in it that gets tools all sticky. The hardwoods (deciduous) such as basswood, walnut, maple, cherry, poplar, elm, butternut, oak (white better than red), etc. are all fine for power carving and hold detail well.

Claude

[Inadv]

Frank,

"Pine" is a pretty large family of the softwoods. The only species I have found that is suitable for carving is Eastern White Pine. Don and Claude both make good observations regarding Yellow Pine, and pitch pockets. But the answer to your question is, yes there are woods that are not good for power carving, or any other method of carving for that matter, IMHO.

L.P.

[frankjay02]

Thanks for the answers .

[Dileon]

Honestly you can power carve almost all woods, although some woods have heavy oil, or sap or used for glue. You do not want to use any pointed burrs, or diamond bits, sanding bits because they will clog your burrs something terrible. I use carbide bits instead....they still many need cleaning but little.

[leavyc]

So...have any of you carved redwood? I have a beatiful slab cut from a burl, but have not carved on it yet.

[torpidhummer]

My choice of power carving woods are tupelo,jelutony,and basswood,tupelo being first,however this wood has become increasingly harder to obtain,I discovered a local importer of jelutony a great carving wood from Malaysia that carves like butter and also great power carving.basswood is great to carve with edge tools and can be carved with power tools if you don 't mind the fuzzies that power tools cause but these
fuzzies can be be sanded away.I was fortunate to meet another carving tool supplier
that introduced me to jelutony and great supplier of this wood. So now my first choice has become jelutony,I can see what I am buying,I purchased an 8' plank 6X12 that will keep me busy the rest of the year.
Oscar

[GaryHanson]

torpidhummer

Any chance of sharing your source for the jelutony?