Last week I thought I’d see if I could get a little more detail in my dog carvings.  Maple (on the left) was the first experiment, carved from a piece of maple (at least, I think it’s maple) that I found in the discard pile at Woodcraft.  That turned out so well that I tried something similar with a piece of mesquite that I picked up at Mike’s ranch back in September.  Both carvings are two inches tall.

I’ve heard it said that there are two kinds of maple, “soft” and “hard”.  But I was told that even the “soft” maple was incredibly hard.  I found it to be quite nice to carve, certainly easier than the oak whiskey barrel.

Mesquite, too, is said to be hard to carve.  This piece wasn’t terribly difficult to cut, but it did have a tendency to splinter a bit.  Getting clean cuts requires a very sharp knife, and perhaps a bit better technique than I currently possess.  Still, I think it turned out quite nicely.

I’ve cut one of these dog patterns from a piece of black walnut (same stuff as the whale).  I’m hoping to carve on it sometime this week.