is pine easy to carve?

While, I'm not a real carver by any streach of the imagination, I've found that the growth rings in pine make carving rather tricky, as the density of the wood is constantly changing.

As with many woods it depends on the variety, I've found most white pine to be an excellent carving wood but you still have to be rather selective. Avoid any woods that display radical grain changes, the boards may be pretty for some other purpose but not carving, Your typical Borg pine is yellow pine and does indeed have hard winter growth rings and very soft summer growth rings. Other good carving woods are Bass, rather soft, and Western broad leaf maple, medium hard. Avoid the very hard woods especially for chip carving. Carving is a great passtime and as with anything else the more you try the better you get and you'll never stop learning. Gary

pine isn't great to carve, but if what you got is pine, try some. it gets sticky sometimes tho, and aviod knots. i power carve pine and that works well. the big hobby stores sell bass blanks that are nice to carve. lots of carving info on the web. try this site:

Endorse the white pine, but with the same caveats. Slicing produces good cuts without too much difficulty.

Bass is also great, but can be difficult to find, as it's not really used for a lot of other things, more's the pity.

I think white birch is about the nicest for chip carving. Medium hard, consistent, and pleasant. Soft maple is similar, but the large proportion of darker heartwood makes it less desirable.

Pine is a royal PIA to carve. It chips, splits, splinters and dents too easily, and the alternate soft and hard wood of the growth rings makes it tough to deal with. I did manage to carve sunburst on an apron for a table I made out of the stuff, but that's because I found some that had nice tight, almost q-sawn grain. I also did rope-carved legs on the same piece, and that was tedious as all hell, and took quite a bit of work with a rasp (and even sandpaper) to get smoothed out.

The results were worth it, but I'm not sure I'd want to do it again. You can see a pic of the table at:

snipped-for-privacy@swt.edu (Conan the Librarian) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

Ever thought of wetting down(spraying) the area you are carving with a mixture of water and alcohol...you might be surprised at the results you can achieve.(G)

GJP

That's the ticket. Pine is horrible to hand carve but it's great for power carving. But I guess you can say the same about most woods. Power carving is the way to go with pine. I still use my old Ryobi carver. Problem is my hand is still vibrating in the morning but with good blades it works well.

Real nice work Chuck. It looks like you put your non-fishing time to good use!

Have to agree with Chuck regarding general carving although I must admit I have no experience chip carving it. Seems it has very little shear strength between grain strata therefore any detail either pops off when it is being carved or due to minor bumps, so I at least spend half the time regluing pieces back on ....mjh

Now that you mention it, that makes sense. I sometimes use a spitcoat of shellac on wood with really difficult grain, and I imagine the same would hold true here. However, I'm not sure it would do anything to help the biggest problem with pine, and that is it is splintery and alternately hard and soft.

Chuck Vance Just say (tmPL) FWIW, from some of the responses I've seen in this thread, I should probably clarify that I'm talking about SYP.

Thanks, Jim, but that should probably be reversed. :-)

Chuck Vance Just say (tmPL) Or at least I *try* to put my non-wooddorking time to good use.

snipped-for-privacy@swt.edu (Conan the Librarian) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

Hmmm...applying a spitcoat of shellac is something I would associate with a treatment for a "punky" section in a piece you were carving, to give it some stiffness so as to maintain detail. I'm not sure what you mean about SYP, is that a species of pine? Which leads us to the fact that there is pine and then there is pine.(G) Have you ever seen any of the carving done by the woodcarvers of St.Jean Port Joli in Quebec...they used pine to a great degree in all there carvings. Although Basswood is used by a great many carvers today, pine too is used with great success. I guess that it all depends where it grows and what specie we are talking about.(G) GJP

Absolutely, as all those who have contributed to this thread favoring pine as a medium have mentioned, eastern white (P. strobus), which is of a good, even consistency, responds well to carving. The original request specified chip carving, which is another skill set from carving in the round, but does involve mostly cutting, not gouging.

I find stropping beats soaking. That way I have almost no compressed fibers to try to re-expand, and they never look right after they've been crushed once, to my eye.

I occasionally turn eastern white on the lathe, though it's pretty bland stuff.

"George" wrote in news:4083faaa snipped-for-privacy@newspeer2.tds.net:

Only partially correct George...he said and I quote "has anyone ever tried chip carving pine or any carving in general? is pine easy to carve?" So carving in general is also a valid subject.(G) As far as "soaking" , again I believe I used the term wetting with water and alcohol not soaking...and stropping often, goes without saying when talking about chip carving, of which I'm well aware of.(G) Just want to keep the record straight....no argument intended.

GJP

That's the way it's used for planing difficult woods, as it stiffens the wood fibers and seems to help prevent tearout. It seems like it might have a good effect for carving too.

Southern Yellow Pine. It's the common pine species down in this area.

Sure, just like there's rosewood and then there's rosewood. :-)

Seriously, we get mostly SYP here, and it's quite a bit different from the eastern stuff you guys might have access to. SYP has very distinct growth rings with variable hardness. It's also heavier and tougher than the eastern pines.

No, but I will do a web search to see what I can find.

Yep. I've got some pine in my shop from Mexico that's called "guato pine" and it is *very* dense, tight-grained and hard. It's a joy to work (much like working maple), but it is the exception.

Chuck Vance

Conan the Librarian wrote in news:c613o4$4035$ snipped-for-privacy@news.swt.edu:

Should have recognized SYP, but first think of Eastern White Pine when Pine (EWP)is mentioned.(G) If you don't have any luck in your web search let me know I can dump a picture over in A.B.P.W. of one of the pieces I have from St.Jean Port Joli,...just ask? Thanks for the reply.

GJP

I found some sites with carvings from that area, and the level of detail and realism that they achieve is almost scary. :-) Outstanding stuff.

Same here. But now I've decided to just give up carving altogether. ;-)

Chuck Vance

snipped-for-privacy@swt.edu (Conan the Librarian) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

Humbling isn't it?(G) But it does give one a plateau to strive for, of course you could then look onward to Grinling Gibbons for inspiration.(G) Thanks again, your comments have been much appreciated.

GJP