[Eddy Smiles]

I know this is slightly off topic but I use to salvage oak pallets but not for carving. I heated our house with a wood stove for 30 years and the majority of it's fuel came from oak pallets that no one wanted. Talk about iron wood. That cured pallet oak will dull a chain saw in a heart beat. I usually ended up taking them apart and cutting them down to size with a carbide blade in a circular saw. I'm not sure how you'd go about carving with the stuff.

Also, another excellent source of found wood. My wife and I get our exercise in by walking the neighborhood and one day I stumbled upon some art work that someone had thrown out. It was large artsy type posters that come with an integral frame. The frame was constructed out of some kind of really nice 1x2-1/2" wood, no grain, with the consistency and color of basswood. I'm sure that it's not basswood. I broke all the frames down and saved the wood. It carves really nice. You never know what kind of treasures you're going to find when you start dumpster diving!

[Claude]

Eddy:
Here's a couple of examples of what I did 35 years ago. I got the old pallets from the shipping dock on the Navy base where I worked. These two carvings were done with hammer and 1/2 inch straight carpenter's chisel, plus a homemade chisel created from a broken screwdriver, heated up and pounded thin, then retempered, and a "gouge" made fom a 16d nail. In those days, I didn't even know basswood existed...

The initials plaque is around 4 inchs square, and the Surface Warfare Officers pin is over 12 inchs long.

Claude

[Thomp]

Dumster diving, hummm

that name is often put with a sour idea of swimming in used spegetti or something for me,

but i think that for the right reason most anybody would dive into the construction dumsters.. i have many times jumped into some great treasures in one dumster at the base, once i got 47 sheets of 1/2 and 3/4" plywood without a single nail hole used for tent flooring in a readiness exercisre. at &15 to 25.00 a sheet then it was well worth the humiliation...
like i said it was a dry construction dumpster, no food waste...

[Tom H]

Thomp and Others, No need to dumpster dive or even scout around construction sites. Give a little carving to the folks who work at the sites. Tell them you use reclaimed wood for carving. Be very specific about the wood you are after. They will deliver. At least twice a month I come home to a pile of wood scraps (and some not so scrappy) at my shop door. Tom H

[Thomp]

hummm,

tom the old sly fox,
Eddie we been out done!

[Eddy Smiles]

Tom H.... Excellent idea and a nice variant of the Golden Rule... Treat others as you'd want to be treated. I often give away products of my efforts with no other thought than to please the person that I receives them. Very often I'm rewarded two-fold for my efforts. People can be very appreciative. That's one reason why I never try to sell my work. It's more fun to give it away.

Claude.... That's beautiful and the only way it could be prettier is if it was an enlisted cap device. As you can probably tell, I worked for a living when I was a swabbie! Ha! Ha! With that said that chisel must have had one heck of a temper. I know that oak was hard stuff.

[Claude]

Originally Posted by Eddy Smiles

...
Claude.... That's beautiful and the only way it could be prettier is if it was an enlisted cap device. As you can probably tell, I worked for a living when I was a swabbie!...

Here's one I did, Eddy, that you might appreciate.

http://www.woodcarvingillustrated.co...00/ppuser/3705

Right after I took this photo, I painted the little blue stripe around the top of the sailor's hat to convert him to a middie. I was one of those, and well remember the use of swab, sponge and bucket! Thank Heaven for the Chiefs, who kept all of us officers from doing something stupid...

[Eddy Smiles]

Claude... I liked both but I love the chief! Especially the belly! I can still fit into my dress blues, 37-years after the fact, mainly because I was striking for chief and I had the pot where the blouse road up and showed the belly! I lost it after I got out but have since regained it. Ha! Ha!

[Thomp]

Started a Little league Pee Wee team,

Here is a lil' feller think his name is "Heckler"

Standing Tall on a dime, these average 1-1/4 inch characatures are getting plentiful here on my desk,
see the idea take form as i go through the 18 or more kids

Click HERE!

[Lightningbolt]

I like this little feller! Good job on the woodburned accent too.