What to practice carving on for top?

[eastshores]

I'd like to get a little time in with carving. I've got a good finger plane and some good scrapers. Some chisels that I don't know how to use I feel I need to know how to take a lot of wood off to get a top roughed in and was wondering if anyone might chime in on whether I could use a practice wood like yellow pine? To me the grain can be similar between it and some spruce that I have looked at but I have no idea whether it is much softer or harder and I know that matters.

Should I stick with spruce to practice and just buy some low grade wood or could I gain some experience working with even cheaper woods that I can procure from Lowes?

[pointpergame]

Pine is fine. Requires really sharp gouges / chisels. I'm an all out hand wood worker and I actually have chisel and gouge sets with lowered angles especially for very soft woods. They are sharp like razors and take a light touch. That might be a little radical for a normal person, but it's part of working with the softer woods.

Fir and Redwood are two other candidates with their own personalities. Learning to carve those will give you a point of reference for spruce. Also, spruce ranges from hard and disagreeable to easy like butter, so there's a wide range of soft and "ribbed" across the...uhh...board.

[GaryTimmons]

I'd like to second the bit about sharp tools. I did several practice plates top and backs and I used what ever wood was available. I soon discovered that dull tools were no fun. Absolutely learn how to sharpen your tools, "like butter".

[Bill Snyder]

YELLOW pine can be hard, very hard. Get "White Wood" from Lowes. It is most likely spruce, at least it is in the Lowes stores located in Central Texas. I think they call it white wood because it varies depending on the area of the country you live in. Even if it is white pine instead of spruce it will carve more like spruce will than yellow pine will.
Whatever you get, look for some quartersawn (vertical grain) wood.

[Rick Jones]

When I built the Home Depot prototype to the mando in my avatar, I bought a 6' length of cedar siding. Planed it thickness, cut two pieces of appropriate length, joined them, carved a decent top. Cost about $10 if my memory is correct (which is questionable!).

[eastshores]

Thanks for the replies. I did find a "white board" and I believe it is probably spruce.. I went through what they had and found the best board I could that had straight tighter grain without knots everywhere. It was pretty remarkable to feel the weight differences and I noticed boards that had a lot of compression grain felt heavier (I had read they are more dense). It was $14.98 and I should be able to get two clear sections to practice on and being so close to the real thing I can practice staining too! Now.. to make a template for a top.

[fscotte]

Old World Tonewood has the real deal Adirondack spruce tops for $15. So you could literally use them for your mandolin as well as getting practice.

http://www.oldworldtonewood.com/cata...hp?cPath=32_68

[eastshores]

Old World Tonewood has the real deal Adirondack spruce tops for $15. So you could literally use them for your mandolin as well as getting practice.

http://www.oldworldtonewood.com/cata...hp?cPath=32_68

Well.. dang. hahah!

[ColdBeerGoCubs]

let me start this by saying that I'm rookie scum when it comes to building, I'm building these things completely by hand in an apartment I will never get the deposit back on.

That being said; ignore all the advice you've been given so far. Forget the spruce, forget the pine, the Loews white. Ignore the much more qualified opinions and experience of everyone who posted above. Get yourself the nastiest piece of maple or whatever hardwood you can find and go at it. Get 3 or 4 pieces. Don't touch a spruce til your neighbor has told you that your sobbing is keeping her up at night. Don't touch a wood that could be used for a soundboard til you've threatened a chunk of maple with its inanimate life. Your sharpening skills will skyrocket. Spruce will feel like a cake walk after that. Going from spruce to maple will only take all that spruce experience and toss it right out the window. Find your happy place with the maple and 3 or 4 tools and the soundboards will be your cloud nine. Damm this hobby.

[eastshores]

I can understand where you're coming from.. so basically - if my plan is to learn to carve both tops and backs.. it would be better to start with the more challenging of the two? I can imagine though that hardwood could at times cut more predictably than soft woods like spruce. My biggest fear would be having a chunk of spruce shatter out .. and ruin all the work but I imagine that can't happen if your tool is sharp. Chef's know that a dull knife is the most dangerous knife in the kitchen.

Since this thread is still active I have another thought. Outside of the romantic qualities of hand carving a top, I'm not sure where it matters how you got the wood off? I recently saw a couple videos of a "power carver" and also have looked into carbide tips for rotary tools. Are there any practical reasons to use a finger plane over something like a power carver?

[HoGo]

There are some specific differences between carving tops (softwood) and backs (hardwood). So you would need training on both of them.
Basically you can carve mostly across the board especially the initial hogging but for details you need to learn grain runout on spruce so you won't chip edges and reading figured woods for clean cuts.
Working with thumblanes is somewhat different on the two as well.
BTW, is the white wood board one piece (10" width?) I would try to rip it and join the pieces with grain as similar to normal top as possible. I would rip it down the center and join with the bark sides so the grain would be close to quartersawn for most of the plate. Learning carving on flatsawn spruce will teach you few things you will never encounter on normal plate.

[eastshores]

Thanks Adrian. I should get your mandolin drawings today! It is a single piece but it is wider than 10" .. I think it's 13" across.

I was thinking of joining it for practice.. Edit: I just looked at my mandolin I see the tighter grain is actually toward the center so joining this board would indeed make sense.

I looked at ordering a jointer from amazon but then I was watching my DVD on mandolin building and he showed how if you clamp the two pieces together you can join them on something as simple as sandpaper that is on a level surface so I'm not sure I'll invest in the jointer just yet although I'm sure it's the fastest and easiest approach.

[fscotte]

Yeah I use an angle grinder for roughing out the maple plate. Extremely dangerous, nasty dust throwing, and loud, but I don't build a new mandolin every week, so I'll take my chances. I've gotten so good with 40 grit on my grinder that I can shape the plate to within .100" or so of final contour.

[eastshores]

Yeah I use an angle grinder for roughing out the maple plate. Extremely dangerous, nasty dust throwing, and loud, but I don't build a new mandolin every week, so I'll take my chances. I've gotten so good with 40 grit on my grinder that I can shape the plate to within .100" or so of final contour.

I've got a Dewalt 20v cordless angle grinder.. Do you drill depth guides?

[fscotte]

Steps for the back:

Cut to slightly oversize shape.
Belt sander to create a rough slope, see photo below.
Use router sled to cut outer edge down to 6mm, about 1/2 " wide.
Drill depth holes using my template for outside contour.
Angle grinder with 40 grit down to almost final shape.
Finger plane to cut off any odd edges and create trench for recurve.
Palm sander 120 grit then 220 grit to smooth and shape the contour of the arch.
Hand sand to final shape.


This is what I mean using the router sled to create an even edge.