Is wood carving the scummy end of wood working

[MeTaBo MaN]

It maybe just me! but i always get the impression from timber supplyers and others in the timber industry that they think wood carving is just a waste of timber, Even most wood supplyers seem to give me attatude when trying to source timber. Am I alone in this?:rolleyes:

[echnidna]

They are used to dealing with construction and furniture people and are not familiar with artistic woodies. I expect turners may have similar perceptions.

[Pat]

It all depends on where you go. As noted above, most timber suppliers are interested in the building industry dollars, not the art/craft market. I personally go to Brad's Burls (http://www.bradsburls.com.au/) at Penshust NSW. In Mexico try here (http://www.vwa.org.au/list_timbven.htm) for the Victorian Woodworkers Association list of timber merchants. The Tasweigens have this (http://www.forestrytas.com.au/forestrytas/pages/productscraft.html) to say . . . Hope this helps!

[Tikki]

Same with intarsia ... we don't use enough timber and we take too long to use it! :D

Cheers
Tikki :)

[LineLefty]

You'd be amazed at what you can carve from a roof truss.

[Tankstand]

Is wood carving the scummy end of wood working

Heck no!

I am in constant envy of those who have artistic talents.

[Ianab]

Small amounts.. unusual sizes.. they aren't really interested :(

Have you tried making contact with anyone running a portable sawmill?. They would be able to cut unusual (larger) sizes and may have interesting types of wood. If they know what you are looking for they may be able to cut you short blocks from what is otherwise waste logs.
Other option is to salvage your own wood from local trees, you will need a decent chainsaw and something like an Alaskan sawmill jig, but that will let you cut almost anything you come across into boards / blocks perfect for carving. You are going to have to dry the wood yourself, but air drying is pretty simple and all that you will need. Just takes some time.

Cheers

Ian

[MeTaBo MaN]

Small amounts.. unusual sizes.. they aren't really interested

Yep I thought that it might of been it.But since I buy ten sleepers at a time the garden supplyers love me :P hehe. I think thats why traditional carving will never be that big in Australia because of the timber is hard to source not to mention being as hard as concrete. You think that some of larger Timber supplyiers might try to grow there market and exploit some of the garbage offcut timber that can't be used in furniture or flooring making... Oh well just a thought.

[finewoods]

Go to Lazarides Timber Agencies ,Big blocks in different species and carving tools and sharpening stones .www.lazaridestimberagencies.com.au
Give them a go .they have about 80+ species of wood including turning stock:)

[VEEBULL]

I have been beating my head against the wall for several years trying to keep up a continual supply of carving timber .I now have enough to keep me in projects for the next couple of years .
Persist , persist , persist , good carving timber will not suddenly arrive at your shed door .The internet is the perfect place to track down timber .

Couple of years back , I googled ' WHITE BEECHWOOD ' ( a particularly nice wood to carve ) I located several large boards in Pt Macquarie , the boards were 350mm wide X 200mm thick and 1 metre lengths , 8 boards in all .A fair wack of timber for not a lot of outlay .

Make a goodwill contact at a timber yard or sawmill , so if anything of interest comes in you will be the first to know . However , NOT ALL timbers are suitable to carve and you will probably pay a good price for a block of a good size and specie .I quite often have friends and rellies tell me they have found a lump of timber for me .More often than not , the wood is rubbish BUT every now and then a pearler piece turns up . So keep the friends ands rellies onside !!Contact the local tree lopping services in your area , a mate of mine scored a truck load of mango , simply by bunging the tree lopper a six pack .

Our desert hardwoods are great for decorative additions on carvings but you seldom find them in blocks large enough to do a large bust etc , and besides our hardwoods , are rarely without checks and flaws and they are a FAIRCOW to carve !!A couple of years back , I needed a specific timber which was only available from the US , so I imported 2 blocks , no problem .Here is a list of some of the better woods to carve :
White beechwood ( local)
White beechwood ( Solomon Islands)
Chilean Myrtle
Red Cedar
Qld Walnut
Qld Maple
American Hickory
English Limewood
Tupelo Gum ( US)
Tas Myrtle .
Blackheart Sassafras
Huon Pine .
Fruitwood ( pear , apple are VG , cherry is good too )
French Boxwood ( very good for fine detail but hard too get now )

If you find a salesperson , disdainful of woodcarving , politely remind them ,that a carver of the Calibre of Don Powell , regularly sells his carvings for several thousands of dollars .One in particular that sold for approx $18,000.00 which was carved out of several different timbers that would not amount to more than a couple of coffee table legs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

regards
Veebull

[HuonCarver]

well i for one have never looked on woodcarving as the scummy end of the wood chain as myself and my father spent many a year in the saw mill end of wood in the late 50's,and like many timbermen,most have a deep appreciation as to what can be carved or found in the "Chunk"of wood,I find that if i take a few photos of what i carve,it helps.

[ubeaut]

Scummy end.... You have got to be joking, it's the pinnacle, at the pointy end.

Timber yards don't as a rule think that woodcarving is a waste of timber. They are however extremely likely to think that a woodcarver is a waste of their time. It is not uncommon for a carver to pull all the timber out of the racks looking for the perfect piece then ask for 600mm to be cut off for them from a 4 mt length and top it off by complaining about the price.

Timber yards aren't all that interested unless you are buying a fair swag of timber. I often used to buy many hundreds of $'s worth of exotic timbers to be used for furniture carving and in classes. Because of this I never had a problem.

The scummy end of woodworking? I paid $2,500 + $1,200 air freight for a piece of Hon pine to carve the 3 coats of arms for the Vic Supreme Courts and many thousands of $'s for mahogany and blackwood for the carvings in the ANZ bank complex in Melb. These 2 jobs, on todays rates would be worth well over $150,000. The scummy end of woodworking. I think not.

Cheers - Neil :)

[carousel carver]

Dont know what you mean by scummy but at 80 years plus i still manage to pick scummy paying work .

[Arron]

Yep, I think the perception is that there is no market there. Add to this the fact that they probably realise that woodcarving is a dying art. It doesn’t appeal to millenials and Gen Ys, who are into instant gratification and not psychologically attuned to spending months of effort acquiring new skills with very little to show for it. Mostly it’s us Boomers who are interested and we’re not necessarily the group people want to build markets around.

I used to belong to Sydney Woodcarvers group and every week a new person would turn up hoping to take up carving. I never once saw one of them come back for a second week. I guess it took one evening for them to realise they weren’t going to be a master carver in a few weeks.

Hence no one importing or marketing woodcarving timber.

Fortunately I like having esoteric skills so it doesn’t matter to me.

[bueller]

The scummy end of woodworking? I paid $2,500 + $1,200 air freight for a piece of Hon pine to carve the 3 coats of arms for the Vic Supreme Courts and many thousands of $'s for mahogany and blackwood for the carvings in the ANZ bank complex in Melb. These 2 jobs, on todays rates would be worth well over $150,000. The scummy end of woodworking. I think not.

Cheers - Neil :)

Got any pics of those pieces from ANZ and the Supreme Courts? Would love to take a look!

[truckjohn]

It maybe just me! but i always get the impression from timber supplyers and others in the timber industry that they think wood carving is just a waste of timber, Even most wood supplyers seem to give me attatude when trying to source timber. Am I alone in this?:rolleyes:

I get the same (and worse) when looking for guitar wood...

The vast bulk of people in the timber industry are selling:
Pulp wood for paper products
Construction related wood products
Dunnage
Treated Sleepers and Poles
and Firewood

woodworking and furniture making are way down in the decimal trash in terms of volume.. And very specialized stuff like intarsia, turning, and hand made musical instrument making is at the bottom of that list in terms of percentages... Seriously - one of my acoustic guitars consumes maybe 3 bf-ft of wood and takes the better part of a year for me to finish.... Vase and bowl turnings and carvings are pretty similar - a "normal" carving I see takes maybe 1/6 bd-ft..

As such - they look at us as the odd fellows who want weird stuff but never buy anything.... As a result - we end up going to specialized suppliers who serve the specific hobby/industry....

[ubeaut]

Got any pics of those pieces from ANZ and the Supreme Courts? Would love to take a look!

Pic of one of the 3 Coats of Arms. All had slight variances in the Kangaroo one was Rambo Roo, one Woosie Woo, the other was just Kanga Roo.

Didn't have much of a camera back then so most of the pics were pretty ordinary taken with very old, 4th hand, ancient, $40 Pentax SLR, that wouldn't focus properly.

If I can find them I'll try scanning them and see what I can come up with.

If anyone goes to Melbourne and wants to see some of my work the ANZ bank complex cnr Queens and Collins St has quite a few The front doors on Colins St Reproduction of the Old Stock Exchange doors and inside set of transom panels over doth sides of the internal doors to the stock Exchange floor, numerous linen fold panels in the bank chamber and aroung the corner in Queens St the doors to the old Safety Deposit building.

The 3 Coats of Arms can be seen in the Court of Appeals one in each of the 3 courts. One of them can also be seen behind the judges in the court scenes of the classic Aussie movie "The Castle".

434492

Cheers - Neil :U

[bueller]

Cheers mate, I’m in Melbourne for work occasionally so I’ll be sure to check them out!

[Robson Valley]

Artwork and carving (bone, stone, metals and woods) is a booming, thriving occupation here in the Pacific Northwest.
Particularly for a whole culture of younger native Indian artists. Many of them are direct descendants of big house names from the 1950's.
Edenshaw, Martin, Davidson, Hunt, Reid and many more.
They've sustained the talent by apprenticing youngsters with an uncle or a grandfather for a decade or more.

Value for price? Been a lot of very shrewd marketing and the quality is really there.
The styles and designs are all around us on a daily basis.
Everything from company logos to coffee cups.

I'm not native that I know of. I have no problem going through a lift of fence posts, looking for the best.
As long as I leave the pile as I found it, I get no snotty, snooty reaction from the lumber yard staff.
If you find that you have to deal with really rude staff, call them out on it. You don't deserve that.

[ubeaut]

Sorry about my last post pic didn't work properly. I have just installed it again and should be fine now.

The coats of Arms are each (from memory) around 900mm or roughly 3ft high. 'Twas some 20+ years ago and the brain't not as sharp as it used to be.

Cheers - Neil :U

[bueller]

Gorgeous work mate! Any idea how long a piece like that would take to finish?

[ClaudeF]

Beautiful work!
Claude


Pic of one of the 3 Coats of Arms. All had slight variances in the Kangaroo one was Rambo Roo, one Woosie Woo, the other was just Kanga Roo.

Didn't have much of a camera back then so most of the pics were pretty ordinary taken with very old, 4th hand, ancient, $40 Pentax SLR, that wouldn't focus properly.

If I can find them I'll try scanning them and see what I can come up with.

If anyone goes to Melbourne and wants to see some of my work the ANZ bank complex cnr Queens and Collins St has quite a few The front doors on Colins St Reproduction of the Old Stock Exchange doors and inside set of transom panels over doth sides of the internal doors to the stock Exchange floor, numerous linen fold panels in the bank chamber and aroung the corner in Queens St the doors to the old Safety Deposit building.

The 3 Coats of Arms can be seen in the Court of Appeals one in each of the 3 courts. One of them can also be seen behind the judges in the court scenes of the classic Aussie movie "The Castle".

434492

Cheers - Neil :U

[ubeaut]

Any idea how long a piece like that would take to finish?

Long time ago but from memory the 3 coats of arms took around 15-16 weeks from the time they were ordered until they were hung. At that time I owned and ran Central Victorian School of Woodcrafts and was conducting classes 3 days and 4 nights per week as well as weekend workshops most weekends, running courses in woodcarving, woodturning, general woodwork, sharpening, restoration, decorative finishing, upholstery, etc, etc.

The coats of arms were carved between classes and part of one was carved by me as demonstration at the 2nd Timber and Working With Wood Show in 1989.

The Huon pine was sourced from an isolated timber cutter in Tasmania. It tool 3 weeks to find the right piece which was cut specially from a trunk of a massive tree that had been logged over 40 years earlier and never cut up. The slab (again from memory) was 38" wide x 8' long x 6" deep and took another 3 weeks before I found someone who could split the 6" thick timber down to 3" with competence Back then band saw mills were pretty new and not all operators were able to give a clean even cut over the width and length of a slab that size.

For those interested the tree was believed to be well over 1,000 years old. I counted 800 rings in the slab (give or take a few for bad eyesight and the odd lack of concentration).

Cheers - Neil :U

[algart]

any thoughts on WA Jarrah and Sheoak for Carving?

[cava]

The sheoak that I have has to be drilled to put a nail in.It is tough as!

I am sure that it would turn out very nice, but it would be hard on the chisels.

[truckjohn]

The Sheoak I have used is actually easy enough to work once it's properly seasoned. I didn't have any trouble with it being particularly sensitive to grain direction, runout, or such... It planes and carves better than actual oak in my book... It also hot bent very easily.... Far more reliably than typical "Sub-Tropical" hardwoods.

[Robson Valley]

truckjohn: you may not be referring to the same species of tree at all.
Lots and lots of common names get transferred around the world for different woods altogether.

Australian Red Cedar is a spectacular hardwood, can't recall the proper Latin binomial name for it.
Western Red Cedar in North America is Thuja plicata which is a very soft conifer wood of many shades of brown.

Huon and Camphor Laurel are the two carving woods in Australia that come to mind.
I know there are some others that have the necessary qualities of grain, ring count and density for detail to carve well.
You pick one. Do a dozen carvings or more in a year. Learn the wood. Then use another. Learn the wood.