Stick 4&5&6

[mikeg]

Nice job! I really like them. I need to try my hand at one sometime.

mikeg

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

Those are great faces windsong!

[tnartist05]

Thoses are REALLY neat! Like how each one has its own personlity plus your details are great! Good work indeed~ Tn

[BrandantR]

Great sticks. I love the character in their faces.

Brandant

[Mark Gargac]

Those are some real nice carved sticks! Reminds me a little of Alen Goodmen's style of carving.

[windsong]

Mark
Yes im tyring to use his work to improve mine.But i,m all so useing Tom Wolf work in my sticks.I was not got to tell who i was useing as my reference i case he got up set about me butchering his work Ha Ha !!!But i guess there not to bad if you see some of his style in my work.
Vic.

[Lightningbolt]

posted by bbeery:

Can you give me a better description of what type of birch or do you have a botanical name? I've never seen birch with such dark bark. Great job on the woodsprits, I really like your technique.

The darker skin birch that I believe Windsong is using in Kentucky is the same that we have here in the nearby North Carolina mountains since it looks exactly like it in his picture. If it is, then in my Peterson's Field Guide To Edible Wild Plants it is scientifically referred to as Betula spp. The common name is listed as sweet or black birch. Like Al said, the leaves are very similar to cherry.

The best way to test if it's truely sweet birch is to pluck a small twig, then skin off the leaves and scrape off the tender bark with your fingernail or pocket knife. There will be a VERY obvious wintergreen smell and the twigs are great to chew on too! The old timer's around here use them as "in the field" tooth brushes and the kid's at our camp (me included) are always chewing on them.

Oh yeah, I forgot to say that the dark bark sometimes has various patches of fungus growing on it so I always use my finest steel wool to remove. This steel woolin' is a highly pleasurable process because it will leave the stick with a clean bark surface that has a lustrous glow as though it had a couple of coats of high gloss polyurethane.

Great wood to work with!