46 articles match · page 3 of 4
In depthSeptember 2, 2024
Can walnut wood be used for carving?
Walnut wood carves clean and holds crisp detail. The cost people miss is color, because dark hides your own depth.
In depthAugust 30, 2024
What does low density wood mean?
Light wood is not weak wood, and softness is not why I carve basswood almost every day. Here are the real numbers, and one puzzle from my bench I still cannot explain.
In depthAugust 30, 2024
What makes wood less dense?
Density in wood is the ratio of solid cell wall to hollow space, and the wall weighs the same in every species. Ten light woods weighed, with the cedar oil claim corrected.
In depthAugust 30, 2024
What is the lowest density wood?
Balsa weighs nine pounds a cubic foot at twelve percent moisture, and the USDA prints about ten pounds for the same tree because it weighs the wood bone dry. Nine species are laid out with both units, and then the reason I choose limewood has nothing to do with weight.
In depthAugust 29, 2024
What boiling water does to wood, and what it quietly ruins
Heat plus water softens the lignin in a cell wall, so boiled stock squashes 25% to 30% along the grain and keeps a curve. It also darkens, lifts the grain and leaves the piece a shade weaker. Here are the real times, the real temperatures, and the three places a soak costs you.
In depthAugust 29, 2024
What Janka hardness of wood means for a hand carver
An 11.28 mm steel ball, driven to half its own depth, leaves a dent of exactly one square centimeter. The load it took is the Janka number. Here is how that test is run, why two books print two figures for one species, and the hardness band where a gouge stops slicing.
Everything above is free and stays free. The courses are where I put your hands on the gouge and watch what they do.
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In depthAugust 28, 2024
What does rot resistant wood mean?
I carve indoors, so the species list here comes from the government wood laboratory and I name it every time. What I can teach you is how to read decay in a board before you trust it with a hundred hours.
In depthAugust 28, 2024
What does the modulus of rupture of wood mean?
A leaf tip lets go and everybody blames the wood. Here are the real bending numbers, and the grain slope that decides the outcome long before the species does.
In depthAugust 28, 2024
What does wood density mean?
Light board, heavy board, and one number behind both. Here is what density really measures, and why the same basswood shows up as 0.32 in one book and 0.42 in another.
In depthAugust 27, 2024
How do you soften wood before carving?
Soaking, steaming and bottled softeners all work for an hour, and all of them raise the grain. What really changes a block is a sharp edge, the species you picked, and knowing which way the grain runs.
WOOD for Wood CarvingAugust 23, 2024
Is Willow oak Good for Carving?
WOOD for Wood CarvingAugust 22, 2024
Is Red Oak Good for Carving?