October Workbench

D. Hinton said:
Can you steam bend hickory
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Dax~

The reason I use limb wood is to avoid steaming. I select sections of branches that grew to the curve I need and set them aside to drive. Hickory also has the reputation of being "tough" - as opposed to brittle. Good for tool handles and such. So, I do not hesitate to pickup my long-tailed decoys (carvings, really) by the tail - which I mortise into the rump about 2 inches.

All the best,

SJS
 
It's October in Alaska. Snow is building up fast. All the birds have flown South. Temperatures down near zero at night and in the twenties during the day. It's carving season.
Lot's of white spruce sawdust flying around the shop. (Sun&snow outside). I'll get a dozen or two gunners done this winter. Goldeneyes, harlequin, Longtail (old squaws) are very popular and constantly requested.
Here's what October has on My workbench.
 

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Very nice work. I started wood carving while living in Fairbanks 44 years ago. Not a lot to do in the winter, carving was good therapy. I was carving in a corner of a one room apartment that my wife and I found on Chena pump road. All hand tools back then, no noise since the landlord lived above us. I kind of like wood chips on the floor, the wife didn't like it as much.
 
Don Mintz said:
Very nice work. I started wood carving while living in Fairbanks 44 years ago. Not a lot to do in the winter, carving was good therapy. I was carving in a corner of a one room apartment that my wife and I found on Chena pump road. All hand tools back then, no noise since the landlord lived above us. I kind of like wood chips on the floor, the wife didn't like it as much.
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Sometimes I wonder with these stories if you love your wife as much as she loves you lol. Woodchips in the corner of an apt floor would get me thrown out so fast.
 
Don Mintz said:
Very nice work. I started wood carving while living in Fairbanks 44 years ago. Not a lot to do in the winter, carving was good therapy. I was carving in a corner of a one room apartment that my wife and I found on Chena pump road. All hand tools back then, no noise since the landlord lived above us. I kind of like wood chips on the floor, the wife didn't like it as much.
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We're out Chena Hot Springs. Been carving up here about 20 years. Finally built the decoy shop 2 years ago. So nice to have a nice dedicated shop with a woodstove and furnace.
 
my youngest son started working with me making decoys when he got out of college in 2010, we had various product lines over the years. Covid virtually eliminated the business, now he's a manager at Scheels. I sure enjoyed working with him, he's quite the artist in his own right.
 
William Reinicke said:
Sometimes I wonder with these stories if you love your wife as much as she loves you lol. Woodchips in the corner of an apt floor would get me thrown out so fast.
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Use to be an old man here that carved his whole life. Rumor was at one point he was living in a single wide with his wife and 2 sons. Apparently no shed to work out of at the time so his bandsaw was in his bedroom.
 
Eric Patterson said:
I mentioned this in the past but I'll bring it up again. Often when carvers talk about tupelo they mention the wood needs to come from the base of the tree and not the trunk. I'm suspect this is myth. Has anyone who makes that claim ever compared carving wood from the base and further up the tree? I doubt it. Most folks buy whatever chunk their supplier has on hand. Many of those suppliers get those chucks from the mill who got it from the timber company. Did anyone make certain the bases were kept separate from the trunks? I doubt it. Have you ever tried milling the bell shape versus the trunk? The bell shape is a heck of a lot harder to saw than the trunk. Meaning mills won't want to fool with them and they would require custom sawing, if at all. I suspect mills don't separate the bell shape base, instead they remove the taper and saw the entire log where it goes to the middleman who sells it to carvers who have no way of knowing. I talked to a forester friend (AU grad) whose family has been in the sawmill business for decades. He said in all his experiences trees that come from swampy areas with bigger bases, like ash and oak, the bases are harder, not softer than the rest of the tree. He could think of no reason why tupelo would be any different.

This base business is just something that smacks me of internet myth. I don't think people who say it like it is gospel have any evidence. So maybe you got a chunk of tupelo that did happen to be from the base and that is why is is too hard to carve. Who knows?
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Eric, I talked to a friend (is a professional carver) the other day that sells Tupelo stump wood for carving. He goes out where they have logged Tupelo and cuts further down the bell area to be used specifically for decoy carving.

He said the reason the loggers leave it is because it's softer than the main trunk. He said you can tell a difference in the density of the sections and sometimes can be tough even on power tools when using trunk sections.

All the pieces I've got from him have carved beautifully with no issues. Pieces I've got from other sources have been tougher than carving black walnut, oak, or hickory.
 
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