Best wood to use

[jspringertx]

I am a newbie (just received my machine yesterday) and are anxious to get started. Can anyone suggest what type of wood I should buy for best results (pine, poplar, red oak, white oak, etc)? I would probably buy the 10 or 12 inch width and cut to size.

I called CarveWright yesterday for the first time, received my activation code immediately and did one sign on some scrap wood I have.

By the way, I saw that Sears was including this item on the Craftsman Club later this month. Since I paid $1,899 plus shipping I called them and asked them "what gives?" They told me to contact them next week and they would credit my account for the difference. It restored my faith in Sears customer service.

[Malfunction]

MDF works decent for a carving.

[HandTurnedMaple]

The FAQ does state that materials containing glue (MDF, plywood, particle board, et al) will dull bits at a higher rate (probably because of heat issues and the elastic resistance of the glue versus the shearing of the wood it was designed for).

When mine comes in today (fingers crossed and anger mode on standby), I will be using trying the 4 pieces of basswood I have on hand after a couple of test runs with clear pine. I asked around at the WoodCraft store in Boise, and they recommended basswood for handcarving so I figured it was worth a try. I will publish the results.

[jspringertx]

Basswood sounds like an excellent choice. I found the FAQ and it does mention that glued wood will cause the bits to lose their sharpness.

I noticed that CarveWright prefers a tight grain.

[HandTurnedMaple]

I am told handcarvers prefer a softer tight-grain wood (you never know where your cut will stop on open-grained wood). But I am wondering if the CW will like the wood harder or softer. I have a couple of hard maple scraps from the lathe I will be trying too with the same pattern as the basswood (for a real comparison).

[HandTurnedMaple]

Basswood was not a great choice. It came out very fuzzy. I thought about just sanding the background and leaving the elk fuzzy like I did it on purpose.

Haven't cut the maple yet.

[newcarver]

I've tried cherry, red oak, and pine. Cherry and red oak were the best. Cherry came out awesome, with very little fuzz and almost no sanding required. the red oak came out slightly fuzzy, but not bad at all. Pine is a bad choice for detail,but for signs with just letters that can be sanded easily it works.
Here are some examples.
I also made a dust collector that mounts under my workbench and uses my 12 gallon shopvac, works quite well, not any noisier than the machine.
The cherry sign never needed vacuming during the carvetime of 2hrs.
Happy Carving

[jspringertx]

The photos of the item using cherry are awesome. The red oak is very good and comparable to the poplar I tried yesterday. Of course I used the wrong setting for the cutting tool so it wasn't the best test.

I will have to try the cherry wood. Thanks!

[menewfy]

this is going to sound like a silly question but I will take the chance and ask it anyway.

has anyone tried hardwood floor and I dont mean the old stuff but the new that you can get a home deopot the tongue and groove stuff? i just wonder what it would turn out like.

tim

[HandTurnedMaple]

this is going to sound like a silly question but I will take the chance and ask it anyway.

has anyone tried hardwood floor and I dont mean the old stuff but the new that you can get a home deopot the tongue and groove stuff? i just wonder what it would turn out like.

tim

There are 2 basic types of hardwood floors there. There is the laminate (cheap stuff) which is basically like plywood. And there is the real hardwood flooring, which is either Red Oak, Maple, Beech, White Ash, or Yellow Birch (there may also some exotics, but probably not in stock at a Home Improvement store).

Personally I would suggest just getting the actual hardwood lumber, unless you don't live near a hardwood store or lack the tools to clean up S2S.