General Craft & DIY discussion

The carousel carving book and prepaid card to Hobby Lobby was a good idea for a Christmas present to my husband. However, he has another goal in mind for the carving rather than the miniature carousel horse.

So ... I am on a search.

He said his best friend's father used to sit and carve chains out of wood ... cottonwood branch and a pocket knife ... and he would like to learn how to do that.

Does anyone have any idea where to find a book on wood carving that would have instructions and diagrams on how this is done?

There is a short pdf file here that explains the process well.
http://thecarvingbench.tripod.com/PDF...

I quite often use Google to find such things. There are some great free plans available as well as hobby boards.

There is a sawmill nearby that I pass by all the time.
The owner puts out blocks of wood for sale on pallets. I'm not sure, but I think they are blocks of pine, I'd have to stop and ask to be sure.
The blocks are approx. 12" long and not as wide. Not square.
I've been looking at these blocks for years. They are sold as green wood, which made me wonder how they could be used as stove fuel immediately. They'd have to be cheap to beat cord wood prices I would think.
Anyway, I keep looking at them as something that could be carved. My 1st thought (when I owed money to the dentist) was that they'd make a great giant tooth.
So far, as usual, I've done nothing with my thoughts.

About 20 years ago, my son & I belonged to the YMCA Indian Guides. The group decided to make ourselves a totem pole, so I was elected to go to a local sawmill where I picked up a 12"x12"-10' piece of green pine. I cut it into 12" sections, drilled a 1" hole into the top & bottom, then gave one to each father & son team. We each carved our piece of the totem pole into them & when we got together, we'd stack them up with dowels between them.

It's a real shame, but somewhere along the way, we lost our piece, the top one, an Indian head that came out great. We had stained & painted it a bit, so it looked like a real face with a scar on one cheek.

The scar was a crack in the wood. Drilling the 1" dowel holes through the center had helped, as did all the carving, but a block that size is going to shrink & crack. You can let it dry, then carve knowing where the cracks are or take your chances.

The rule of thumb for air drying is 1 year per inch. That can be sped up a lot by creating a tunnel of plastic & blowing a heater through it. It's less expensive to use a couple of incandescent light bulbs & a small fan, just something to move a lot of warm air past it.

I microwave small pieces like the bowls I turn. I turn them green, then nuke them for a minute on high. I weigh them before & a few minutes after each session. When they're a little lighter after a session & then gain weight over night, I know they're dry.

Turning a bowl clears out most of the wood so the grain can move without cracking, but I still lose some to it. When you have big chunks, the grain is going to strain against itself since the outside will shrink more than the center wants to allow, so you're always going to get some cracking. It's not always a bad thing, as in the case of the Indian's scar. I guess it depends on the form you're carving.

A lot of people really like Tupelo for carving. I believe that's actually Black Gum (Nyssa sylvatica) but it has grown in the swamps of the south instead of the drier hillsides of the north. In Maryland, we had quite a few & it was sometimes sold for firewood. Horrible stuff. It wasn't awful for the fire, but splitting its twisting grain was tough even with a log splitter. Growing in the south, often underwater, the grain isn't pronounced at all & its twistiness makes it great for carving since it will hold small details without splitting off.