We get this question quite often.  Too many people try carving on a 2x4 they get from a local hardware store and they get so frustrated.  “Pine is soft so it should be easy to carve, right?”  For most projects, this is so not true.  Pine has such strong and prominent grain that it causes hand carvers to fatigue quickly.  Even with power carving (rotary tool or Dremel carving) pine is not easy to work with.

So what kind of wood should you use?

Basswood:  Basswood is by far the most popular wood for hand carving.  Basswood has a light creamy color and a very subtle grain line.  It is super soft without being “punky”.  It cuts well going with and against the grain.  Basswood also paints and stains very well.  Powercarvers, however, find that basswood has a tendency to be “fuzzy” when carving.  This is usually not a problem during the roughing out stages of a project, but when powercarving the details it may cause some difficulty.   

Tupelo:  Tupelo is a power carvers dream!  Tupelo is very light in both weight and color.  Usually you can tell it is a good piece of tupelo by how light it is relative to its size.  The reason powercarvers love tupelo is because it does not “fuzz” when carved.  It cuts incredibly fast and incredibly smooth and paints very well.  Most of the professional decoy, bird, and fish carvings are carved out of tupelo. Hand carvers, however, usually do not prefer tupelo because of how soft it is.  When cutting cross grain tupelo has a tendency to crush before it cuts.  Imagine cutting a sponge with a pair of scissors.  Tupelo grows in swampy areas and one interesting fact about it is the only part of the tupelo tree that is suitable for carving is the part below the waterline.  The water in the swamps will come up to a certain point on the tree and up to that point is great for carving, but beyond that point the wood is just too hard.  All the tupelo wood we sell here at TreelineUSA is from below the waterline. 

Now there are many other woods that carvers will us such as butternut, sugar pine, aspen, jelutong, and others, but Basswood and Tupelo are arguably the two best (and most popular) woods for carving.  In summary, if you are a hand carver (using knives and gouges) use basswood.  If you are a power carver use Tupelo.