Top 5 Best Woods For Carving--According to a Woodcarver

#wood #aleclacasse #woodcarving

I show you my top 5 favorite woods for carving. Please comment below your favorites!

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1 x 1 x 4” Basswood Blocks:

Leather Strop for sharpening:

Honing Compound for Strop:

Spray Finish For Carving:

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What I use to sharpen my tools:

[ginginfarragher]

Your love for wood and wood carving is so evident that it is contagious ~ 'Very refreshing to watch! I liked how you added the different sounds of the wood; I could get what you were saying on another level. ❤👍

[kallemustonen]

Here in Finland White birch is one of the most common trees. They do make some plywood out of it, but other wise they just grind it to paper pulp. Birch is wonderfull material for woodworker, but it builds fungi easy. That means your birch bench has to stay dry

[xsrxopt]

my faves Butternut Jelutong Basswood and clear white pine Great carver

[FRANKMANGIAPANE]

When I worked in the antique repair industry we regularly carved oak, mahogany and rosewood.Very sharp tools were a necessity!😊

[nospamhere]

As being based in Europe, I got excited when you mentioned birch! (I can also can get pine and maybe some oak, alder, ash) and then got humbled really quickly by it being the intermediate wood. Imported some basswood for first learning experience, but I have my work carved out for me with birch being second!

[kristenwilson]

I appreciate your expertise and knowledge very much! Thanks for being so approachable and putting things in a clear and understandable way. I’m an old grandma just starting to get into carving. No age is too old, right? Thanks for the videos and all the valuable information!

[embers-cotswold-walks]

Great video, thank you. Have only been carving for a year &, until recently, have been buying basswood. I now only carve wood (fallen etc.) which I collect when hiking. Generally it's Beech or Ash at the moment. It's a learning curve but really enjoy carving something out of local wood.

[MessickGreg]

I was told pine split real easy and had some experience with it but bought some anyway just look at how the grain runs and growth lines. It's still one of the cheapest woods to carve though. Thanks Alec

[ianbruce]

I was given some basswood as a kid (at least that's what I was told it was). I stained something I carved--and was astounded by the intricate grain that was revealed! Fantastic! It looked so bland before staining! And the stain showed just why it is so split resistant--the tangled interwoven grain showed right up. I'd like to try various stains on American Basswood sometime, to see if It always has that appearance. Might have to use analine dye stains. Pigment stains might be muddy. I'll find out.

[doczoff]

Hi Alec, thank you for this really informative video. As a novice carver I'd be really interested to see how you adjust your carving technique for harder woods. I recently did your Christmas tree project in kiln dried birch which I found quite challenging, probably due to rooky mistakes. I suspect I was trying to take too large cuts as it became easier once I started taking much smaller cuts. I also put a lot of effort into initial shaping with the knife before eventually resorting to using a mallet and chisel, which I think was the more practical option. This project also highlighted the importance of maintaining a good edge, I have a Beavercraft knife (which doesn't seem to be generally recommended by experienced carvers) and I needed to strop very frequently, especially while I was doing that tough shaping work. Overall I suspect that these mistakes compounded to make the project much tougher for me so I'd be really interested to see you tackle a much harder wood. I did enjoy carving the Christmas tree and the hard birch resulted in a lovely finish, and more importantly I think I learned a huge amount from my mistakes! :)

[ianbruce]

Paper birch is not a protected tree. A lot of my firewood here in Maine is birch. Nice to carve green! Alaskan Yellow cedar is wonderful! Most cedars are actually Junipers.

[quinntheeskimooutdoors]

Nice information, nice work. I made 20 spoons from very small Eastern White Pine trees we had to clear while cutting Maple firewood. I made spoons from the Maple also. Thanks😊

[americasass]

Thanks for making this! Really loved learning how environmental factors/invasive species affect this craft!

[opethfantoo]

Very informative video And I learned a few things.
As power carver, my 5 top woods..
1) sycamore or spalted sycamore.
2) red cedar.
3) willow.
4) maple or box elder, or if you're lucky, flame box elder.
5) cottonwood bark.
cotton wood isn't really readily accessible to me but I found a guy online that lived somewhat local a few years back that sold me a couple wheel barrels full cheap because he had a cottonwood tree he was going to make a canoe out of.
Also, although harder to carve, I love mulberry because of the colors and grain once finished with oil.

[trravisty]

its lovely to have 2 birch tress in my back garden

[jessiwalker]

Informative! Carved a figurine the other day and I wish I knew what kind of wood it was, I just nabbed it from my firewood haha. Extremly hard but very shiney and beautiful straight grain. It split into such perfect pieces when put through the wood splitter.

[dougmiller]

I once had some mahogany... woodcrafter .. Miserably HARD. BUT it made for incredible detail. I did this with some walnut. A WONDER I EVER continued to carve... LOL

[digocr]

1.Basswood 2.Birch (why advertise protected wood?) 3.Butternut (protected too) 4.Pine 5.Cedar

Shown: Pine, Cedar, Birch, Willow, Walnut, Butternut, Basswood, Cottonwood bark.

Thanks for the video
It’s so curious to see a Helvie cutting easy like that. I like my Beavercraft but it looks like a whole different hobby.

[ManOfSdeel]

I began today wanting to make a box, and I feel better equipped to begin!

[beigenectarine]

Quick Question: does low grain presence mean that carving against the grain isn't very hard to do?