Best woods for Carving?

[twinpeaksenterprises, LLC]

I havn't so far seen anything about types of wood used which seems to me would be the most important aspect to a quality carving. I've used mostly Poplar and Cherry with moderate results, they dont seem to carve fonts very well without chipping. What about Hickory, Red Oak, or Maple, I have an abundance of those but who has the best luck with what woods?

[dougmsbbs]

I'll get this one before a certain someone jumps in...

This has come up before. Search is your friend. Do a search for "best wood", and you'll find everything you want to know about it...

[DocWheeler]

Fellow Buckeye,

Since I owe you one, I'll give you the benefit of my experience.
First, there are several threads here under "woods" that should help.
Of the woods that you mentioned in your post, all carve well and each has its limitations. As you probably noticed, oak tends to chip-out on fragile areas, the new Draft feature should help out here now. Some woods have more "fuzzies" than others which makes them harder to finish if there is a lot of detail. As you have probably noted, fine and tight grained woods work well.

Nobody has posted a table with all of the good and bad points on this forum that I know of although information of that nature is available elsewhere where wood species are described.

I have found that two carvings from the same board finished differently, as if one section was more "dead" than another area, so only general information would be usable from such a table.

The best Centerline that I carved was in some ancient pine that I had in my wood-rack.

Given enough practice and understanding the new options in Designer I believe that you could manage good results from a wide range of wood species.

[Cmdr.Rav]

twin, I know you may not believe me but your height setting and bits will help in a chip free project. Yes the type of wood does matter, but I feel not as much as the correct bit and height. As I told you I have cut fonts 3/4" the first time in a softwood and it did chip. I had my heigth at max 999 and that was too high. I was using a 22 degree bit, then I used the 1/16 ball nose bit that comes with the CC.

I lower the heigth to 500 and with the ball nose bit the fonts came out well in softwood. Oh I also set the font to bold and that helped. This was a test and then I made the final cut in cherry and had no chipping.

The thing I do is take scrap wood and test different wood, fonts, bits and height setting. I hope that helps, that what I have done and it has made my work easier and faster.

Rav

[FINGERS]

I Like Poplar I Thing It Carves The Best For Me Anyway There's Not To Much Finish Sanding To Do, Here's Something I Did With Poplar It's 11x36.

[twinpeaksenterprises, LLC]

Thanks again, well we just started a wood processing business here in "yes" southwest ohio. Well we figured the carvewright would be a good invesment since we have an abundance of stock. Just trying to get the bugs worked out on the machine and produce some quality carvings. Cherry has worked well but overall im still shaky on design and getting chips in everything so ill keep on keeping on .

[newcarver]

Ive used a wide range of woods and can tell you what i have learned so far.

red oak- bad, to much cell in the grain
white oak- better, carves alright
Ash- good
elm- good
cherry- great
walnut- great
hickory-great
pine- great(not alot of grain, but lets the detail come through better)
birch- got some havnt tried it yet
maple- great

all of these depend on what your doing also i would suppose. For basic carving, ive found the harder the wood the better, pine seems to be the exeption for me, i just like the stuff, its cheap and readily available and cleans up well, takes any stain you give it to that color.

[deemon328]

I've found that any species of wood with a closed grain structure works well, while a very open pored wood tends to chip more. A couple examples:

Closed grain woods:

cherry
mapleOpen grain woods:

oak
walnut
mahoganyI haven't personally tried exotics yet(such as rosewood, jatoba, sapele, purpleheart), but their extreme density and hardness seems like it would produce exceptional results.

[The "DH"]

I have used several differents kinds of wood with the following results;

pine and red oak, good but requies alot of cleanup and has more chip outs!
popular, good requires less clean up and has less chip out.
teak, purpleheart and walnut, great very clean carvings very little clean up!

Also your bits play a big part in the carving (sharpness).

Next week I'll be using maple and cherry!!

[twinpeaksenterprises, LLC]

Thats great info.... Okay so a major factor in carving quality is the sharpness of the bit of course. How long can you expect the 1/16 carving bit to last before it becomes noticeably dull and what is the best procedure for shrpening. I was thinking a drill doctor but havnt looked into it yet.

[DrBob]

That 1/16 th carving bit is a through away.
I would say good luck finding a place to sharpen it for you.
Best to buy a new one.
Bob

[DocWheeler]

I'm still shaken about my post yesterday about heights. Sorry about that!

I found the chart below that might be helpful. I think the Machining Quality column is more relevant to the CC/CW than the carving column.

As for carving bits, there are several sources of bits that will actually carve the full inch deep. Ron Justice even indicated that he had them.

[The "DH"]

Doc Wheeler,
Thanks for the chart, it will come in handy!!!!

[fwharris]

Hey Newcarver,
Like your comments on camping. thought you might like to see this...
www.westernslopenofee.org

[Paul Brown]

One thing I have noticed, that aged wood that I have had milled and aged a year or so, does carve a lot better than the wood that I've purchased. I've found that the wood I purchased seems to fuzz a lot more on the carvings and also around the edges with the router, seems to be quite fuzzy. Even with a new bit. I've mostly used some oak and cedar that I had milled up after hurricane Rita blew through, wish I'd hade more milled now.They both carved excellent compared to the wood ya buy in the lulmber yards. Paul Brown