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?

[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).

[c6craig]

Mike,

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

Craig

[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.

[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.
Thanks to all who post.

[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]

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.