Wood carving… Q&A

Ok, so I have been slow here at work and have time to toss some photos up. If anyone has questions I can do my best to answer. Maybe I could even learn something new. I have been carving for 3 years now and learn something new every month. I posted two photos in B-mans post and don’t want to take away from his topic.

If anyone wants to see anything specific let me know. I carve mostly animals… Birds and fish are my favorite. Mostly chainsaw but not limited to just that. There are two kinds of chainsaw carvers. One group that carve only with the chainsaw and some are amazing at this with limited tools. The other group are guys like me. I carve 95 % of the wood with a saw but use a handful of other tools to really clean up and make to piece look the way I want it to by grinding, sanding and burning. I rarely paint wood.

I have progression photos also to show step by step progress. I believe I do anyways. I will dig through some photos and toss it up here. Something better to do than read fake news

Here is a lake trout I posted in the other topic. This is a piece of seasoned black walnut. You will see different color to the wood. This is natural. The white wood is the outer sap wood and the dark colors is the inner heartwood. I like leaving sapwood in the carvings. Builds nice contrast.

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nice stuff!!!!! have you ever entertained the idea of carving fish decoys, for like spearing?? or going to some of these decoy shows???

I go to the decoy show in Alexandria, had 1 guy from up by grand rapids that hand carved a ruff grouse. that was goergous, but a bit out of my price range!!!!

looking forward to seeing more pictures.

Here is a couple owls.. in progress and then finished

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glenn57 wrote:

nice stuff!!!!! have you ever entertained the idea of carving fish decoys, for like spearing?? or going to some of these decoy shows???

I go to the decoy show in Alexandria, had 1 guy from up by grand rapids that hand carved a ruff grouse. that was goergous, but a bit out of my price range!!!!

looking forward to seeing more pictures.

Glen, I have not… I like running the saw and removing wood.. Not a big fan on the detail and finish part but have to do it. Do not like making small carvings.

WOW that is some nice work. What kind of saw do you use and how do you hold the wood while you are cutting?

here is another cool one

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Wow, that’s awesome work! What wood is easiest to work with? Do you use a regular chain saw, or is there a different chain for carvings?

Rodwork wrote:

WOW that is some nice work. What kind of saw do you use and how do you hold the wood while you are cutting?

I run 3 saws but my main detail saw is a stihl ms 170. I replace the sprocket with a 1/4 inch pitch and a 12 inch dime tip bar. The tip on this saw is the size of your pinky finger. I run both .50 and .43 gauge bars. The .43 is thinner and better at detail but the .50 can take a butt kicking when I am doing a lot of carving with just the tip of the saw on harder woods like oak.

Most the time I do not have to secure the wood because I am not putting too much pressure on the carving. I am set up pretty redneck at home. If I do need to secure a piece I can. I have the old wooded wire spools at home. I just set the piece on the spool and shoot a screw through the spool and into the bottom of the carving to hold it in place. There are many better ways to do it but this works for me.

Pieces like the fish I will screw brackets into the points where I plan to mount it to the base. I can them secure these brackets to a 2×6 and clamp that to my spools to hold it in place. Nothing to crazy anyways.

BigWerm wrote:

Wow, that’s awesome work! What wood is easiest to work with? Do you use a regular chain saw, or is there a different chain for carvings?

White cedar and white pine are the easiest to work with and still hold detail well.. If I could get it I would use white cedar exclusively. Its light, has good grain and burns well. Pine has sap. Sap sucks!! It can really mess with my consistency to color at finish.
Hardwoods are great too and have their up sides. Like anything else there are ups and downs but western red and northern white cedar are top of the line in my book. I wish I could get some big pieces of western red but does not come cheap.

I’ve been wanting a carved bear about 4′ tall for a special spot up at the lake. Do you hire out? If so pm me. You clearly have a talent!

If you were to sell one of those fish, what would you want for one?

Ice Cap wrote:

I’ve been wanting a carved bear about 4′ tall for a special spot up at the lake. Do you hire out? If so pm me. You clearly have a talent!

I have only carved a couple bears.. Here is one about 42 inches tall

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Wow. You are an artist.

Cool stuff. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the kind words guys..

I do not intend or want this to be a classified add either. Just Q&A but cost is a common question.

B-man.. Those fish are a really hard ones to price. I was offered 1200.00 for that musky carving I posted in your other thread and believe it or not I turned it down. Is it worth that??? I don’t know. The trout is kind of the same deal. I had about 60-70 hours into the trout. Value is in the eye of the beholder with this kind of work. I do have a 40inch pike carved that was for sale at 500.00, sold and has never been picked up so….

When I carve something for someone I ask what they want and really try to make it custom to their liking. In general I get 125-150.00 per foot but that is all subject. Anywhere from 100-200.00 depending on wood species and detail time. 24 inches to 96 inches tall is what I have carved at these cost. I try my best to work with people on their budget and if we are both happy with it then I start the saw.

I am going through photos and seeing ones I have not seen in a while. Here are a few cool ones. You can see how burning the wood rather than stain or paint can be pretty cool. I used a beer can to do the snake. Just cut out about 5-6 different shapes to stencil the edges as I colored. Had to drink a few beers to get enough material.. haha.

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Wow!!! Those are really cool!! VERY Nice work!!

Wow! Very impressive work! Thanks for sharing.

Have you done any Walleye?

man that is impressive, especially the detail.

I still cant color within the lines and i’m 62!!!!!

arcticm1000 wrote:

Wow! Very impressive work! Thanks for sharing.

Have you done any Walleye?

Thank you, I did do a walleye the first year I was carving. Was a big one that stood vertical on a log but cannot find a photo..

I did find some more walnut carving photos that I did. Black walnut is one of the best looking lumber that we have here in MN. I have some more logs at home and thinking what to do with them. I carved these eagle heads below and thinking about doing another batch of them to see how they look now that I have more experience. The full size perched eagle is one I kept at home. I am a hoarder of sorts. Have a few that I hate to see leave.

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You are SUPER talented!! Love looking at your art pieces.

Those are some fine looking pieces of work.I think you found your 401k at the end of a chainsaw.Good job buschman.

I had a large pine cut down 2 years ago and left an 8’ tall stump to hopefully carve into a Musky, I figured if it ended up looking terrible I would just cut it down anyways… what tips could you give me?

Thanks again guys. Glenn57 asked earlier about decoys and the grouse he had seen. I like your appreciation for those pieces glen. They are all awesome works in my opinion. It is meditation to some and always fun to do something you enjoy. No different than going out fishing beside the bad ones going in the fire pit and the good ones don’t taste very good.
I appreciate you all enjoying the photos. Honestly it’s the same game to me “carving/fishing”. We Always have to adapt to what we get and challenge ourselves to get better or at least not sit in a rut. That’s my purpose for the photos. I hope someone takes something from it and makes a positive action however you can for yourself, family or others instead of sitting back and worring right now. We’re lucky people. Lucky to have an opurtuntiy to try and test yourself or talents every day. Just have to do it.

JoeMX1825, I can walk you right through it. If you want to do it alone I can send you a grid of where you cut. Just need a saw, tape measure and some color crayons. The rest is up to how detailed you want to be. Can help anyways. Feel free to pm me or can post it here also.

Awesome work!!!!

This is some very nice work!

I was going though more photos and realizing I have a lot of them!! So if you guys want I can keep posting more. They all have a story behind them and though I have been carving for 3 years now I remember every one of them when I see the picture. Some of the photos I have not seen for a couple years now so fun to look though. I will toss more up here this morning.

Here are some odd ones for me that I tried. Not animals anyways.

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buschman wrote:

JoeMX1825, I can walk you right through it. If you want to do it alone I can send you a grid of where you cut. Just need a saw, tape measure and some color crayons. The rest is up to how detailed you want to be. Can help anyways. Feel free to pm me or can post it here also.

I appreciate the offer to help, once I figure out a time to start tackling it i’ll shoot you a pm!

This is a fun one.. My brother was getting married and carved their gift. Their married last name was Rabbit. So I made a carving to help them remember the day.

the smaller wall carvings were made for a benefit for my cousin fighting breast cancer.. The peace sign carving above was for her to keep. She helped design it.

The turtle shells.. One is from a big snapper that we harvested at our cabin and made soup with. My brother really wanted a shell but we were not going to kill a big snapper just for another shell so I carved one and left it at his cabin.

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