Wood from lime tree - suitable for carving?

Gaspode

Hi all,
we sadly had to fell a really old lime tree in our garden this year, and I'm just wondering if it is suitable for carving?
I have a good few rings from the tree that I was going to use mainly for firewood, but would like to have a go at a bit of carving on some of it.
I assume it will need to sit for a while to season.

Alun

Absolutely .. in fact Lime wood is considered probably the best wood for carving as it has no real grain to speak of.

Gaspode

Cool, cheers

William Powell

Often associated with the work of Grinling Gibbons google images for Grinling Gibbons Lime Carving

Edit> A really good lime carving link

Coriolanus

Lime (or basswood as the yanks call it) is pretty much the perfect wood for carving. I've been trying to get my hands on some, since the olive and pine I've been trying is breaking my heart.

You're going to want to probably cut a few 1" and 2" rounds off to dry. Larger rounds or quarters tend to split a lot easier.

slowburner

Yes you will need to let the wood dry before you make anything out of it. Drying wood is a whole science in itself.
If you can, get the wood off the ground, under cover and out of direct sunlight. Best if you can keep a good a good gap between each log to allow air to circulate.
Another thing to consider is that wood always splits from the pith if it is left in the log although some woods are less prone to this effect.
Good link here on seasoning timber

jack of all

My minimal wood drying experience is limited to drying split beech logs (for mallet making) but I paint the ends of each round with a couple of thick coats of emulsion paint- to prevent excessive drying out. Good results so far.

kadman

You may hev been better to plank the tree, if it was large enough in girth, to do so. Many people think that to slice rings of the trunk is the way to go, to store some valubale timber. Its best to cut the trunk in as long a length as is manageable, then rip planks out of it.

Its a beautiful , forgiving tmber for carving. And is great for the novice carver, who wants to give it a go.

kadman

Gaspode

Didn't have a choice in the matter tbh, tree was chopped up by a contractor and the wood was given to me as firewood. Might be useful for smaller practice pieces maybe. I've been breaking some if it up and there's a lot of rot through it, not surprising it came down.

William Powell

What sort of height and girth was the orignal tree?

1chippy

isnt exactly an ideal timber for firewood. you need a fire just to burn it and pretty low on heat output.

Gaspode

William Powell wrote: »

What sort of height and girth was the orignal tree?

Jeepers, not sure - I'd say about 30 ft high, diameter up to 3 ft in places. It lost a lot of it's crown about 25 yrs ago, so wasn't as tall as it might have been.

1chippy wrote: »

isnt exactly an ideal timber for firewood. you need a fire just to burn it and pretty low on heat output.

Maybe so but it's free and I've a mountain of it, so I'm happy!
I burnt some of it last weekend even and it was fine.

William Powell

Gaspode wrote: »

Jeepers, not sure - I'd say about 30 ft high, diameter up to 3 ft in places. It lost a lot of it's crown about 25 yrs ago, so wasn't as tall as it might have been.

Maybe so but it's free and I've a mountain of it, so I'm happy!
I burnt some of it last weekend even and it was fine.

Just wondering if it was big enough to be worth planking and at 3ft you would have got some good planks out of it but its all hassel if you're not in the trade dealing with round timber.

Free is always good! I'd take a free load of it any day and one thing that people don't always take into consideration with firewood is conversion costs, lime is very light on the chainsaw and splits easily which you can't say for all timbers. It would be better burning than most softwoods even if its not up there with Ash, Beech and Oak.

kadman

I,ve planked many trees, up to 4 foot in diameter, with an ordinary chainsaw, fitted with a ripping blade.

I re filed a standard chainsaw blade to a shallower angle, 25 degrees I think. And it had no problem ripping planks in elm, ash, oak and sycamore.

A neighbour of mine told me at one time to take what ever I wanted from a windblown sycamore, about 4 foot in diameter. He said he was going to burn it for firewood. So I re sharpened the blade and off I went.

Two days later, when I was leaving with the last trailer load, I met him coming in the field with a monster of a John Deere tractor, and trailer. He stood up on the tractor to look down the field for the remainder of the tree, I left nothing only a pile of sawdust. I dont think he was too impressed:D:D

kadman