WOOD SOURCES

Whittling with Chris Lubkemann...A Unique Slant on Woodcarving

Information on Chris Lubkemann's carvings, books, demonstrations and programs

WOOD SOURCES

Lots of folks ask, "Where do you get your wood?" The answer to this question is both short and simple, and at the same time long and somewhat involved. The short answer is, "All over the place, just about anywhere!" And the long answer is, "Well, it depends on what you want to make. You may have to keep your eyes open and search for a while to find the kind or piece of wood you need for a certain project."

        As for twigs and branches, let me list some of the places where I have found them.

        * my own yard (of course not all folks have yards!)
        * my neighbor's yard (with permission)
        * discarded branches pruned in parks, along roadways, and by homeowners
        * mountains of trees and branches at construction sites (always check with the site supervisor first)
        * trees and limbs brought down by wind, ice, snow
        * wooded lots (checking first with the lot's owner)

Below: Trees that were bulldozed at a consstruction site a couple of miles from my home. You can tell I already cut a bunch of the branches. This particular tree was linden (basswood), not particularly good for roosters and the like, but great for other projects and for woodburning (pyrography) projects.

This is what my little station looked like when I got home from my branch cutting expedition. I suspect I got a few curious looks from passing drivers. Between the giant slingshot (I mean Country Pitching Machine!), the pile of branches on the roof, and the signs on three sides of the car that explain the contraption, I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised.
I just don't understand why my sweet, white-haired, very-loved, grandmotherly wife doesn't at all like to drive this vehicle!

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SOURCES OF MILLED WOOD:

I rarely buy a piece of wood for one of my projects, though at times I have done so. Sometimes I'll need a big piece of lumber for part of a large project (like some of those in my book, TREE CRAFT: 35 Rustic Projects That Bring The Outdoors In). Of course there are the lumberyards and millwork shops, but there are other places that are good sources for some beautiful used wood. I've gotten some great pieces of wood at the local Habitat for Humanity store. Many of the smaller pieces of wood that I've incorporated into my work have come from scrap bins at local woodworking shops.

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February 5, 2014......Winter is actually one of the best times to find the best branches and twigs for whittling. All the leaves have fallen, letting you see the best potential carving "blanks." To be sure, the branches are more clearly visible when they aren't covered in ice, like they were this morning here in my front yard! Nasty weather for driving, no doubt, but still great for hunkering down and getting some carving done!

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Branches on the table on my back deck an hour or so ago. No problem...just wait and see! I'll just knock off the snow and ice and see what emerges this afternoon.

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8:30 P.M. on February 5th, later the same day the previous photo was taken -- I pulled the branches from the table, shook off the snow, wiped the branches off, cut them into smaller pieces, brought them inside, and whittled these pieces from just a small part of the cut up twigs and branches. All of these particular branches were birch. The larger rooster on the left isn't finished yet. I'll finish carving the tail feathers either later tonight, or tomorrow, when the tail branch has dried a bit more. That way the tail feathers will curl better when I slice them. Painting and woodburning, as well as mounting the pieces on stands...that will come later.

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Here's the rooster with its just-finished tail. It's 7:30 P.M. on February 7th, two whole days later. Actually, I let the de-barked tail branch dry too long, so it was a bit of a struggle to get a half decent tail. Once a fresh branch of this size has the bark peeled off, you probably should get to the tail 24 or 36 hours earlier than I did on this particular piece. In other words, letting the de-barked branch dry for just a few hours may be enough drying time to get a good tail.

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February 7, 2014 -- Those of you who live in the Northeastern U.S., and certainly in our particular part of Pennsylvania, know that in the past week we've really been hammered with snow and ice and freezing rain. Roads closed, power outages all over the place, the Amtrak line shut down for two days, cars crushed...all by falling trees and branches! Lots of dramatic stories, to be sure! To put it all in a different way, we could say thousands of "lemon trees" got shaken, and a gazillion "lemons" were left scattered all over the ground!!!

Not that I would vote for such a winter storm and all the damage it causes, but since the "lemons" (fallen trees and branches) were all over the ground anyway, I figured that maybe I could collect some of them and try to make some "lemonade"! So today I got in my van and drove around some local neighborhoods looking for raw material to carve. It wasn't long before I ran across a front yard that had a large limb broken from a flowering plum tree, one of my favorite woods for making knives/letter openers and name "logs." The lady who answered the door was nice enough to let me spend a couple of hours in her yard cutting up the branch, and even pruning some of the long, thin shoots that typically grow straight upwards in flowering plum trees. The following photos show what I cut and loaded into the back of my van. For sure, it will take me quite a while to "squeeze these lemons" into "lemonade," but in time I'm sure that a lot of nice projects will get carved from this early February storm!

BELOW: FLOWERING PLUM BRANCHES ADDED TO SEVERAL INTERESTING PIECES OF WOOD FROM A FRIEND'S WOODPILE . . .

Anyway, we'll see what emerges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . BUT WAIT! Since the above photo was taken, a couple of days have gone by, and I've added to the pile of wood in the back of my van: A FEW BRANCHES SALVAGED FROM TWO LARGE AMERICAN ELMS. . .

AND A BUNCH MORE FROM THIS BEAUTIFUL PAPER BIRCH JUST DOWN THE STREET. . .

. . .AND ADDED TO THAT, BRANCHES FROM A DOWNED MAPLE AND ANOTHER BIRCH. . .

PLUS A SLEW OF LITTLE SCRAPS FROM THE WOODWORKING SHOP I GET MY KNOTHOLE PIECES FROM . . . .

COME TO THINK OF IT, IT'S ABOUT TIME I UNLOAD THIS STUFF AND GET STARTED CARVING SOME OF IT!!!!!

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FEBRUARY 11, 2014

. . .SO. . . HERE'S THE NEXT STEP: Cut up some of these branches; wash off the pieces that have dirt on them (so the dirt doesn't go from the wood to my hands and then back to the inside, freshly-carved wood); put a piece of dark double-knit cloth on the floor to collect the chips; and start whittling!

. . . LATER THE SAME DAY: Lots of wood chips and some partially done pieces -- 4 roosters, a hen, an owl, a pheasant, and a letter opener . . . I can't do the tails yet. The tail branch is too wet and won't curl when I make the thin tail slices. I'll try them tomorrow.

FEBRUARY 12, 2014
. . . A second hen, just about to get cut off its birch branch "egg". . . (Oh, about the band-aid on my thumb . . . No, it's not a cut from carving! It's one of those winter splits in my skin that I'm always fighting with. Honest!)

FEBRUARY 12th (sometime after lunch): carved pieces -- 4 roosters, 2 hens, 1 owl, 1 pheasant, 1 letter opener, 3 little flowers

ONE WARNING . . . When you carve a very fresh branch (in this case one that just came down in our recent snow and ice storm), there's a chance that it will naturally split as it dries quickly indoors. You can avoid this splitting by letting the branch dry more before you carve it.

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. . . Looking back at some other sources of wood for carving . . .

HURRICANE "SANDY" left all kinds of trees and branches scattered all over the place. To put it another way, there were tons of "lemons" on the ground after the storm. We were able to salvage some of them and make
some pretty cool "lemonade."

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March 5,2014 . . . Just discovered a bunch of piles of branches that were pruned from the trees in the Amish Farm and House's parking lot and in the parking lot in the shopping center next door. All kinds of good wood!

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December 16, 2014
Just this morning there was a message on my answering machine from a
not-too-far-away neighbor informing me that he had pruned a couple of birch trees and telling me to feel free to take what branches I wanted. Hoping to beat today's predicted rain, I hustled over to his house, and, WOW, there was enough good raw material on the ground to keep me going for months! Who knows what all is going to emerge from all the twigs and branches that are currently inside and on top of my van! (Oh, and I didn't quite beat the rain. As I was loading up, I got reasonably wet!. It was all worth it though!!)

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Not too long ago a friend informed me that he had cut down a large holly branch and wanted to know if I was interested in it.
Absolutely! Holly is a nice, dense wood, almost like ivory in color.
Often the bark is dirty, however, and it's necessary to wash the bark before beginning to carve the wood.

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As you've no doubt noticed, most of the raw material in the preceding photos consists of branches and twigs from a good variety of trees. To be sure most of what I've carved, and about which I write, has been from twigs and branches. HOWEVER, that
definitely doesn't mean that many projects can't be whittled from
other pieces of wood, such as the conventional blocks of wood and other milled pieces you can get in a craft store or building supply store . . . or even what you can find at your local doctor's office, or the local family restaurant, or even at the convenience store down the street that sells ice cream.

For example, less than one hour ago as I write this, my wife and I
got home from our "senior dinner special" at one of our favorite local restaurants. One of my dessert choices was a coconut macaroon cookie on a fondue skewer (presumably to dip in the nearby chocolate fountain). I skipped the chocolate, ate the cookie, and was left with an unlicked (except for the tip) bamboo
skewer. For the record, bamboo is no good for little flowers or trees, but it does make great knives . . . and, I discovered, miniature forks and spoons! All three miniature utensils went to Laurie, our server (not forgetting the tip, of course). The following photos document the story.

. . . JUST THE LATEST EXAMPLE OF A NON-BRANCH RAW MATERIAL. And following is a list of some of the other types of wood I've used for various projects:
* All kinds of scraps from lumberyards, millwork shops, kitchen
cabinet shops
* 1" by 3" cut-off pieces from storage shed window and door trim
* Straight-grained scraps of wood from old buildings that are torn
down
* Pallet wood
* Tongue depressors (I had all kinds of fun with one of these at my
oral surgeon's office while I was waiting for a tooth extraction!)
* Toothpicks (especially the round ones) . . . a great way to make
time go by faster during a super long wait at a restaurant meal, or
a wedding reception
* Chopsticks and skewers (usually bamboo)
* Wooden ice cream spoons
* Of course you can always buy pieces of wood at a woodcarving
supply or craft store. Very often these will be pieces of linden or
basswood. While this kind of wood won't let you make the figures
that call for a Y-shaped branch, with your pocketknikfe you will be
able to make knives, boats, owls, and a number of other projects.

TO SEE A NUMBER OF PROJECTS MADE FROM NON-BRANCH WOOD, CHECK OUT SOME OF THE PHOTOS ON MY "RECENT
PROJECTS" PAGE.

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Lying on my back deck, under a quartet of my pocketknives, are some pieces of milled wood I'll be carving some projects from. There are a couple of paint stirring sticks, an assortment of dowels, two straight-grained wood scraps (the darker one is mahogany, and I don't know what the other one is), a defective wooden spoon, and some pieces of separator strips from a local home improvement warehouse. Either on this page or my "Recent Projects" page I'll let you know what come out of what you see here.

From the pieces of maple, cherry, black walnut, and mahogany, plus a branch of I-don't-know-what (upper photo), and from
our most recent Christmas tree will come . . . . . . . . . . ???????? We'll see, I guess!

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A short walk along a few streets in Ridgewood, NJ, took me past
some river birches just outside the entrance of the town's hospital. The trees had dropped some small branches that were poking out of the recent snow. A brief conversation with the security guard just inside the lobby, together with the fact that I'm always open for a new venue in which to carve, resulted in what you see on the coffee table. (I did clean up all of my wood chips!)

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September 7, 2015 . . . A week or ten days ago, on the half-mile walk from my shop to the local office supply store, I passed a house with a huge maple tree that had a pile of
branches under it. (I normally drive, but I'm glad I took the shoe leather option this time!) Several days later I stopped by, spoke to the owner, and got permission to salvage some of twigs and branches that were still usable.
Following are some "before" and "after shots. Many of the branches got transformed into "name logs" for woodburn-
ing, but others became letter openers or little stick figures.