Here's my latest

[TerryT]

This was carved in poplar on the optimum setting. About 6 hours carve time. This was made from a single pattern.

[dbfletcher]

wow! That looks great. How are your planning on finishing it?

[henry1]

This was carved in poplar on the optimum setting. About 6 hours carve time. This was made from a single pattern.
Now that is nice keep up the good work Terry

[c6craig]

Wow, nice job! I have been staying away from poplar because I thought it was too soft to hold detail, but after seeing this I may have to give it a try!!

Craig

[spalted]

Very nice looking, all those antler motif patterns of yours really are sharp.

[Router-Jim]

Very nice!

[rjustice]

Wow, nice job! I have been staying away from poplar because I thought it was too soft to hold detail, but after seeing this I may have to give it a try!!

Craig

Craig,
When i first started carving i felt the same way about the Poplar, and also found that it left a lot of fuzzies to clean up. Just by a fluke I recently carved a piece that had set in the garage for about 2 years, and used it to test a design, and found it to carve very nicely. The only difference was that it had been setting around so long. I purchased another piece, and it was somewhat fuzzy again. So, i checked the moisture of the wood, and sure enough the new board from Lowes had almost twice the moisture content of the old piece... So moral of the story is that dry Poplar definitely carves "cleaner" and "crisper".

Terry,
Very nice job on the sign... It looks great!

[TerryT]

wow! That looks great. How are your planning on finishing it?

Doug,
Thats the hard part. I haven't decided quite yet. It is going outside on a gate so the final coat will probably be spar vanish, unless I paint the whole thing. I always lean more towards staining than painting (I hate to coverup the beauty of the wood).

[TerryT]

When i first started carving i felt the same way about the Poplar, and also found that it left a lot of fuzzies to clean up. Just by a fluke I recently carved a piece that had set in the garage for about 2 years, and used it to test a design, and found it to carve very nicely. The only difference was that it had been setting around so long. I purchased another piece, and it was somewhat fuzzy again. So, i checked the moisture of the wood, and sure enough the new board from Lowes had almost twice the moisture content of the old piece... So moral of the story is that dry Poplar definitely carves "cleaner" and "crisper".



Ron, same thing here. This piece has been in the shop for about a year. Carving on optimum left very little sanding to do.

[William Blankenship]

Nice Carve!! Yep, poplar is a nice wood to carve in, especially on optimum. That came out really clean. Good design.

Bill

[spalted]

Craig,
When i first started carving i felt the same way about the Poplar, and also found that it left a lot of fuzzies to clean up. Just by a fluke I recently carved a piece that had set in the garage for about 2 years, and used it to test a design, and found it to carve very nicely. The only difference was that it had been setting around so long. I purchased another piece, and it was somewhat fuzzy again. So, i checked the moisture of the wood, and sure enough the new board from Lowes had almost twice the moisture content of the old piece... So moral of the story is that dry Poplar definitely carves "cleaner" and "crisper".

Terry,
Very nice job on the sign... It looks great!

Moisture content really does affect the machined finish quality on the CW or any other machine. More often than not if I have a lot of fuzzing coming out of the shaper or planner I can quickly trace it back to high MC in the wood regardless of the species.

None of my lumber suppliers store wood in a climate controlled environment, and my shop is not controlled either, so the relative humidity has a big effect on my stock. I'm surrounded by who knows how many acres of god awful swamps, right between two of the Great lakes and 15,000 not so great lakes, and we have had buckets of rain the last couple of weeks. So some days my shop floor sweats as bad as I do.

Actually I have some 2"x4" in the lumber rack today that I could swear were 1"x4" this spring.......lol

[TerryT]

I never thought about Moisture content effecting the quality of the carve. Thats good to know. Now the question is, how can I control it (without spending a ton of money)?

[spalted]

I never thought about Moisture content effecting the quality of the carve. Thats good to know. Now the question is, how can I control it (without spending a ton of money)?

I don't have the charts in front of me, but it really takes a sustained period of high humidity to increase the MC of the wood. A search for equilibrium moisture content should give you enough bathroom reading to last a life time. You can see what effect the relative humidity will have on the MC of the wood.

Here in northern Wisconsin it can be 80 and humid during the day and in the 40's at night, the night before last it was 43 here it was 80'ish today. So from time to time I will build a fire in the stove in the shop to dry things out when it is cool at night.

I have always wanted to put an air conditioner in the shop. Besides being very comfortable to work in, it lowers the humidity as well.
I have never found a dehumidifier that could keep up very well in the house or the shop.

[Celticwood]

If you have access to your attic, you have a very efficient kiln for dryiing wood. My attic reaches as high as 130 degrees in t he daytime. That will dry wood very rapidly.

[wasacop75]

Here are a couple of my latest. I just have to figure out how to take pictures without the flash showing up in the middle of a carving.:roll:
Thanks to all who post.

[eelamb]

Mike really nice work, thanks for sharing.

[wasacop75]

Here is today's project. I was not happy when the router table put the lines in the carving. Dont know what happened, but know where the lines came from. I may end up building my own router table out of 1 inch MDF and a drop in plate. Hate it when plans dont come together. The first carving had misspellings. and with that name......;)

[c6craig]

Mike,

All 3 of those projects look great! Somebody is going to be very pleased with those.

Craig