The other day I started a piece of found wood and somehow came up with this little guy, not sure what he is supposed to be but isn't he fun. With the found wood, I always start with shaping the piece of wood to see what I have to work with and what direction I may want to go with it. This wood is a bit harder than bass wood, it is closer to a butternut when it comes to carving, though the grain in some ways could be considered resembling cottonwood bark. I have found at times that the utilization of gouges is not an effective approach and doesn't always result in clean straight edges. For this wood I do a version of stop cuts that seems to be more productive in the long run.
For this wood I also make sure I have a sharp edge on my blades and find myself stropping more than I would with bass wood or even butternut. I find the best approach is using one of my older knives for the roughing out and shaping and saving my nicer blades for the detailing. Even though they may not carve as well at this stage I am only removing unwanted wood so there is no finesse to this part of the carving. Don't get me wrong, the blade needs to be as sharp as you can get it to be productive with this wood. All in all this is a fun wood to carve but it can be a workout opposed to other woods I carve. Then of course there is the issue of knots coming up in the wood. This wood is fun due to the shape due to the branches and knots but it also can make keep an open mind on what you are going to do with the carving. You may have a great idea and then hit a knot and realize you need to modify the design in order to save the overall carving. You may also decide to make the knots and knots holes part of the overall design, but that is for another day.
as always,
Good night and may God bless
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