[oregoncarver]

This is a beaver carving I did several weeks ago. It is out of Alder and about 10 in dia. The wood had been cut over a year ago and is now cracking really bad. Will the carving fall apart on me, is there anything I can do to keep carvings from cracking.

Arthur
oregoncarver@hotmail.com

[brianh]

I put relief cuts in my carvings.

you want to cut to the center ring, on carvings that are smaller size I plunge the bar up from the base to remove the center, no visible cut with that method.

For crack repair I rip strips of wood at about a 5 degree angle onthe table saw and pound them in with glue and recarve.

Some wood check a lot more than others I have had good luck with white pine.

[AlArchie]

Cute bear there, Arthur!

Brian gave a good tip with that relief cut down the back. and white pine is a fairly stable wood when dry.

There are a few reasons for those cracks, splits and checks as we carve.

First, of course is the differential shrinkage of the wood as it dries. This is probably what caused the splits in your carving. When a log section dries, the outer portions dry faster than the inner core, making the wood closer to the surface shrink at a faster rate than the inner wood. CRACK! That's why you will see wider cracks (checks) at teh outer circumference of the log than toward the heartwood.

Then there are the cracks that can occurr even when carving fully cured wood. These are caused by unevenly relieving internal stresses in the wood, and are far more rare than the "drying " cracks. Wood taken from large horizontal limbs, trees grown on a slope or in areas of strong one-directional prevailing winds will have compression and tension stresses all in the same piece of wood. Compression stresses on the down-side and tension stresses on the up-side. In a growing tree these stresses are balanced and the wood is stable. When we carve, we may remove more wood from one side of these "balance boudaries" than the other, and the wood will twist or sometimes crack.

I've had several large pieces split on me when carving due to this type of stress relief... didn't do much to relieve my stress, though!

Al

[oregoncarver]

Thank you guys for the suggestions, I'm hoping to try another over the 4th weekend and will try what you say, also will look for different wood I think

Arthur

[tcb16]

Hi arthur,

A quick suggestion for easy repairs...
I usually use cedar roofing shims from Lowes or Home Depot, Gorilla Glue, and sawdust. If the crack is really large I'll coat the inside with gorilla glue, and hammer in some shims to take up most of the space. Then comes the sawdust, and a bit more gorilla glue. From here I let it dry for at least 4 hours, overnight is usually best. Once its dry the whole crack will be filled because the glue will have expanded out, and overflowed. I usually take a die grinder and grind it down level, and repaint if needed. The glue and sawdust also burns really well, so you can match any colors you need to really well. Hope this helps...
Tim

[Totem]

I can't help you there but whatever advice you get, make sure he's not a duck fan.
ha ha