[cobalt]

I went to a wood yard today to pick up some lime wood managed to get a 10ft 2" x20"wide plenty to keep me going .The guys shifted two large pallets of the stuff for me and had to go thorogh the whole pallets to find a piece i was happy with then the guy said he would only charge me for the wood that was alright for what i wanted fantstic service took me 1hour to select the wood

Whilst there the guy gave me two 3ft lenghts of 4" x 4" of tulip wood .its as clean as a whistle not a blemish or knot on it and had been planed .I know its used a lot for cabinate making ,and that it must be american due to its colour , but any you guys had any experiance of carving it ? I am dying to do something with it not sure what yet just dont want to waste the material

So it looks to have a straight grain its light in weight dont know much about its duribility or anything about the wood

So whats it like to carve?

 

[CV3]

I have not carve American tulipwood, also called yellow poplar, but I have turned a few bowls. I have seen a few carving. It my understanding it carves well. Brazilin Tulipwood has much more color pink and reds in the grain.

 

[gdenby]

Also have not carved any, but have used it to make custom picture frames. Quite stable, cut easily to shape, and was easy to route. Light weight, but fairly rigid. Smoothed easily, and had a nice sheen from just paste wax. I do know it is carved. I have a few pieces waiting in my garage for just that purpose. The grain tends to be long, and I suspect I will have to be careful to not tear strips out as can happen w. conifer woods.

Historical note. The tulip tree, a.k.a. yellow poplar, is the state tree of Indiana, where I live. Its not very common, because it was so desirable for furniture making. I have a partial set of Encyclopedia Britannica from the later 1890's. I read the entry on Indiana, and it mentioned that the state of Indiana had be pretty much logged off by the mid-1860s. British furniture makers had been accustomed to getting shipments of logs 3' thick, and 40' long without any side branches. At the time of the article, 2' thick, and 30' was the best available. It takes stain well, and can be made to look like other woods.

 

[cobalt]

Your right in what your saying gdenby its mostly used in funiture making and turning but havny come across any referance to carving yet.

I was hoping to do some sculpture with tulip wood based on lewis carols alice in wonderland fro m the origanal drawings. always liked the story and have read to to my children and grandchildern.

so will have to see what it carves like 1st

I am keen to do it as a intsallation piece of the wall and was hoping to find out more about the wood .The wood i have is pinkish yellow very light in colour and wieght ,and dosnt have the depth of colour that some tulip has .although its known a s a popuar its not a member of the popular family

I dont know if your aware that several american companys are now supplying wood pulp pellets for our eletric generators on a massive scale .There are growing demonstrations against it here as some say its deforesting hardwoods from your habitat ,american wood companys are saying it only uses waste materials to make the stuff but the american consevation groups cliam that its using most woods and say that it will effect climate change .But big buisnesse only tell you what they want you to know

 

[gdenby]

Most tulip available in America has yellowish thru olive colors. Mine is pale tan, but yellower towards the core. I spent some time working w. a smallish piece this afternoon. Its about 3.5" thick, and has been curing for at least 6 years. I was debarking it, and it was much harder to do than when it was fresher. I'll mess with the piece some more tomorrow, but it felt like I might need a mallet and chisels to cut it, rather than just hand tools. Tho' less heavy, it feels like medium hard maple.

I'm unfamiliar with the issue about wood pellets for fuel. I can mention several things that may be relevant.

As I mentioned above, Indiana state was logged off by the 1880s, if not before. Around the 1920's, policies encouraged farmers to add wood lots to their properties. There are now far more small forest lots than there were. Some of the properties are owned by lumber companies, and the trees are selectively cut.

From here on, I can only add personal observations.

Where I live, many of the 2nd growth forests are being cut away for commercial and residential development. Often, huge mounds of trees are just left to rot. There was one woodland that I thought I might "poach" on for sticks. The last time I drove by, it was a wasteland. There was a large machine reducing some of the larger trunks to chips.

The power utility has been removing trees from along city and country roads where the power lines might be broken if the trees fell during a storm. There was one neighborhood where almost a mile of older oaks were cut away.

And there have been 2 storms in the last 2 years that took down huge numbers of trees. One of the few remaining lumber mills in the area now has many stacks of hardwood logs on its lot, and those have appeared in the last few months since the big storm early in the summer. Some of the trees that fell will be turned to lumber.

There is another place not far away that produces wood chips. There are acres of chip mounds 20+ feet high, and they keep growing.

While burning them isn't "sustainable," because the nutrients that should go back into the soil will instead go up a smoke stack, it is more carbon neutral than coal, etc.

There was an attempt in the county where I live to start a "clean coal" generator to power a steel rolling mill. A large number, hundreds, of health professionals signed a petition to stop it, because the pollution level where I live is already too high. When that petition came out, I read reports that mentioned that besides mercury, coal emissions include large amounts of thorium particulates. The technologies proposed for the plant were not sufficient to rule out all of those emissions.

I don't suppose burning wood has as lasting an impact as depositing radioactive metal dust.

Ooops, Walking stick forum. Kinda going OT.

 

[MJC4]

After our month in the western states we have seen thousands of acres of dead and dying conifers from the pine bark beetle infestation that is deforesting our National Forests and National Parks. The pine bark beetle has always been in the western forests but climate change has increased its abundance by a huge factor. The warming climate is allowing the beetle to survive the winters at higher elevations thus destroying trees that were never before at risk. The resulting thousands of acres of dead trees has increased the frequency and intensity of forest fires immensely all over our western states.

One state has had the foresight to try and eliminate the abundance of dead trees. Colorado has started chipping up the dead trees and is supplying them to a company that is burning them for fuel to generate electricity.

Mark

 

[cobalt]

thanks for your replys

Keen to follow up on alice through the looking glass using the origanl designs dont think there subject to copyright now .but its such a good classic book and the images when cleaned up from the origanl drawingsshould be good l

I have just seen s program on tv regarding wood pellets thats being imported here ,theres growing opporsition to it both here and the states

 

[gdenby]

Quick observations:

I did spend a few minutes messing w. the tulipwood chunk. The wood was surprisingly hard. My recollections are based on cutting lumber with carbide blades and router bits, but I recall the surfaces scratching easily. Also, when the wood was green it felt sort of mushy.

This piece is now well cured. What I could do with palm gouges and knives was minimal. Lots of effort with freshly sharpened edges.

I was able to remove wood using carbide and diamond rasps w/o much difficulty.

I took out my old full size gouges and chisels, and banged away with a mallet. Not too bad up to 1/2" wide. Above that, and I could feel the age in my joints. The wood felt as hard as hard maple. It cut cleanly, and I think it would hold fine detail, but that would be hard to cut by hand.

***

I looked up some info on the wood-pellet issue. One of the first things I noticed was that the expanding use is driven by subsidies, and that is artificially increasing demand. More reading indicates that wood burning increases carbon emission in the near term. The amount of dioxin released appears to be related to both the woods used, and the way in which they are burned. But there is much less heavy metal emission compared to coal.

The US opposition seems to be concentrated around the fact that in some areas, healthy trees are being cut just to produce pellets. I wasn't able to find if some pellets were being produced from waste wood, such as leftovers from the lumber and paper pulp industries.

Over the past few years, I've spent a good bit of time reading on energy use and production. It does not appear to me there are any good choices in the area of burning hydrocarbons. I suspect that cutting forests for wood pellets is only somewhat less problematic in the US than destroying whole forests during mountain top removal for coal extraction.

 

[cobalt]

Thanks for that was thinking of using the carbide burrs on it .I have some projects in mind for it not related to walking sticks but as a sculpture based on the origansl drawings from "alice throught the looking glass. "

This is a book which shoumd be read to every child along with wind in the willows Hoping to carve it as a instalation work as a of the wall project.

Picked upa book or as the wife says" another one" called projects for creative woodcarving by ian norbury which has a few illustrations from both of these books .Its a pity all the illustratins are black and white but what great carvings.

I follow whats going on with the bio fuel as they call it , but like all buisness its what they cand geta way with that matters to fill there pockets so i`m just a cynic, but there is`nt many companys practise what they preach

 

[cobalt]

This is some planks of lime i picked up at the wood yard.althought the guy cut in two for me i said the small plank isnt good enough to use he just said take it anyway. hopefully i can cut out the rubbish on it and use the rest. so a good price for it .nice guys good service. Why the colour has turnd out like this on the photo god knows?