I appreciate your use of the term "tree surgeon". I've been doing tree work for 13 years, and that sounds much better than "tree butcher".

Your vid was very helpful. Thanks.

covering the end grain with a sealer(i use acrylic gesso) helps massively with slowing down cure time and preventing splits, if you debarked the wood it helps to mist it with water and keep it loosely covered in a bag to prevent checking

Thanks for sharing this woodcraft hamster. It helped a lot.

There ae quite a number of things to make where the wood should be as dry as it's possible to make it. Two to three years minimum, depending on the size and type of wood. Up to five years is not unheard of. If detail work seems too difficult with dry wood, you can soften the wood up quickly with a mixture of alcohol and water. I don't find this necessary with most wood, but now ad then a piece of really hard, dense wood does carve better if you soften it this way. The alcohol evaporates quickly, so the effect is short-lived, which is good.

When is the wood ready to be carved?

Thanks

Hi Ive just been given an old owl carving its a really nice carving ‘ have you any suggestions as to what Sort of oil that would be best to use as a preservative. Cheers Pete 👍

nice tip, I recently carved an axe handle from maple that I left sitting around. luckily for me it split in a useful way. will try this out

I like rehydrating wood so that I can already see any cracks that would've happened👍 I've not been able to keep a live wet piece from splitting inna while.

I’m currently carving a piece of wood from a log I found on the side of the road. It seemed like it had just been cut. I started carving out a piece of it and then saw this video and put it inside a clear plastic ziplock bag. Then, I had to leave town for a few days. When I came back the wood had developed some mold on it. I had left the bag open a bit on one side to keep the air flowing. But still mold. Now I’m trying just having the bag over the piece of wood and not sealing it. There’s still a bit of mold in a few spots but I wasn’t able to get it all off in one afternoon. Tomorrow I’m heading to the store to pick up some new sandpaper to get the rest I couldn’t get with my knife and chisel. Any tips on regulating the moisture inside the wood to keep it green and easy to carve while at the same time preventing mold from growing?

How or where can I find Limewood please??? Where do I start and how would I recognise it😢

I am new to your channel and very enjoyable videos

I'm chainsaw carving for the first time today. The wood is extremely fluffy. What should I do? I was planning on doing the main work with the chainsaw and finishing off with hand tools.

May I ask how do you obtain the large tree sections you carve on ? ATB Chris

When I get logs much like the ones you are showing, which is quite often (bragging rites), I simply paint a coat or two of normal PVA glue on the ends, overlap onto the sides a little as well. It doesn't cost much, delays drying out and prevents a lot of cracking/splitting etc...... Most pro' wood suppliers do this for the wood turning trade, either PVA or an alternative. I tend to keep most of my logs outside, with a simple roof over them, even that leaks a bit in inclement weather...

so i got some logs of sycamore from a dead tree that fell when it was struck by lightning and just stacked them in the garage but i checked on the logs the next day and they seem a bit damper then yesterday. Should i worry about it splitting or willbit be fine?

so its got to be sealed in order to useit ahh so if left to dry out harder to carve makes sense