Which wood is best for whittling and carving?

The quality that makes a wood carve well is not softness on its own but evenness: a timber where every part of the annual ring cuts with the same resistance takes a clean shaving in any direction. Construction pine is the opposite — soft spring wood and hard summer wood in bands — which is why the cheapest wood available is also the worst to learn on.

Step by step

1. Decide whether you are working green or dry.This changes the answer more than the species does. Green wood of almost any species is easier to cut than seasoned lime. If you can get fresh material, that is the biggest single advantage available.
2. Match the wood to the detail you need.Fine detail — faces, chip carving, lettering — needs a fine even timber like lime. Bold forms and functional pieces can use harder, more characterful woods.
3. Match the wood to the use.Anything that will hold food should be a close-grained, non-tainting timber like sycamore, birch, maple, cherry or beech. Open-grained oak and ash trap food in the pores and are a poor choice for eating implements.
4. Avoid knots, and avoid the pith.A knot is a branch and its grain runs at right angles to everything around it. The pith at the exact centre of a log will almost always split as it dries. Split blanks off to one side of the centre.
5. Take advantage of free material.Tree surgeons, firewood piles, hedge trimmings and storm damage are where most green wood carvers get their timber. A fresh section of a decent hardwood branch is worth more than anything on a shop shelf.
6. Look at the end grain before committing.Straight, even rings with no shakes or splits will carve predictably. Wavy or interlocked grain, and any existing crack, will not.

Tips

• Store green wood blanks in a sealed bag in the fridge or a bucket of water for short periods, or seal the end grain with wax or old paint, to stop them drying and cracking before you get to them.
• Lime and basswood are the same thing sold under two names. Buy whichever is cheaper locally.
• Air-dried timber generally carves better than kiln-dried, which is harder and more brittle, because kilning sets the fibres.

Alternatives

• Lime / basswood: The default carving timber worldwide. Soft, pale, extremely even, almost no visible grain, holds fine detail. Ideal for relief carving, chip carving and figures. Weak and bland for anything structural or decorative in its own right.
• Birch: Slightly harder, very even, pale and tough. Excellent for spoons and functional pieces because it holds an edge on a thin section. The traditional Scandinavian spoon wood alongside a range of fruit woods.
• Willow and alder: Soft, light and forgiving, and often free from a riverside or a hedge. Good for practice and for green wood work; not durable outdoors and bruises easily.
• Sycamore and maple: Hard, dense, very pale and close-grained. Traditional for kitchen items because they do not taint food and wash well. Hard work by hand when dry, lovely when green.
• Fruit woods — cherry, apple, pear, plum: Fine, dense and beautifully coloured, and often available free when a tree comes down. Harder work but the finished surface is superb. Prone to cracking as it dries, so seal the end grain.
• Oak, ash and elm: Coarse and ring-porous. Oak and ash carve competently in bold forms and badly in fine detail. Elm has interlocked grain that resists splitting, which makes it good for bowls and awkward for detail.
• Dry softwood from a builders merchant: The worst option for learning. Hard and soft bands in each ring tear rather than slice, knots are frequent and rock hard, and the resin gums up the blade. Avoid it entirely.

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