Carving practice in MDF?

[Eshmiel]

Having acquired a variety of carving chisels and commissioned them, the next stage in my learning to relief-carve is to follow the Chris Pye YouTube carving course, which involves practicing all the basic cuts on a board of tulipwood (lime being hard to find, expensive and not already in me wood store). Following that, I'll need to practice relief carving on actual projects before attempting one in earnest.

The recommendation for practice and learning is generally to use one of the "easy" woods such as lime, jelutong eastern white pine and so forth. After I use up my last bit of tulipwood on that practice board, I have no such stuff in my woodstore. I generally scavenge timber but there doesn't seem to be a lot (or any) of those "easy" timbers to get for nowt. And they cost, from a timber supplier, rather a lot for even one plank that might be enough for three or four practice carvings.

When looking about the interwebbery spiders' nest of YouTube I came across a channel in which relief carving demonstrations suitable for "biginars" are shown. They're all fairly simple but good-practice carvings in MDF. This surprised me as I didn't think MDF would carve without breaking up uncontrollably; and that the various constituents of MDF would blunt chisel edges in no time. Yet here are these demos.

https://www.youtube.com/@Waseemwoodcarving

Can any carver shed light on this business of carving MDF? Is it a reasonable medium to use for practice? I can obtain free MDF left-overs very easily.

 

[Amplidyne]

It's only a thought, but I'd have thought anything with a resin binder would be hard on the tool edges, as it tends to be abrasive. I wouldn't be in a rush to try anything other than natural wood TBH. Others may know different.

 

[Jacob]

Having acquired a variety of carving chisels and commissioned them, the next stage in my learning to relief-carve is to follow the Chris Pye YouTube carving course, which involves practicing all the basic cuts on a board of tulipwood (lime being hard to find, expensive and not already in me wood store). Following that, I'll need to practice relief carving on actual projects before attempting one in earnest.

The recommendation for practice and learning is generally to use one of the "easy" woods such as lime, jelutong eastern white pine and so forth. After I use up my last bit of tulipwood on that practice board, I have no such stuff in my woodstore. I generally scavenge timber but there doesn't seem to be a lot (or any) of those "easy" timbers to get for nowt. And they cost, from a timber supplier, rather a lot for even one plank that might be enough for three or four practice carvings.

When looking about the interwebbery spiders' nest of YouTube I came across a channel in which relief carving demonstrations suitable for "biginars" are shown. They're all fairly simple but good-practice carvings in MDF. This surprised me as I didn't think MDF would carve without breaking up uncontrollably; and that the various constituents of MDF would blunt chisel edges in no time. Yet here are these demos.

https://www.youtube.com/@Waseemwoodcarving

Can any carver shed light on this business of carving MDF? Is it a reasonable medium to use for practice? I can obtain free MDF left-overs very easily.

One way to find out is just to go for it. Nothing to lose and you never know!

 

[mwinfrance]

Pour some plaster into a plywood tray..practice on that when it's hard..look at the plaster carving that the Arabs did / do.. Get some wood , poplar will do if you want it hardish, pine will do for practice and indeed for lots of things, look up Adam_W's stuff here , not the chairs etc , though they are superb , but the frames and similar stuff using scrap wood and planks from building work. Slices from trees are good too, even green oak carves relatively easily.

 

[Lons]

I wouldn't practice on MDF. Use common or garden pine which will help you in two ways. You will save your nice sharp edges and prove whether or not they really are sharp as they have to be to get a clean cut in pine.
If not sharp enough then sort that out first. Hardwoods like Lime, basswood, box, walnut, fruitwoods and oak will follow. Most take nice crisp cuts atart from basswood which is on the soft side.

 

[Jacob]

I wouldn't practice on MDF. Use common or garden pine which will help you in two ways. You will save your nice sharp edges and prove whether or not they really are sharp as they have to be to get a clean cut in pine.
If not sharp enough then sort that out first. Hardwoods like Lime, basswood, box, walnut, fruitwoods and oak will follow. Most take nice crisp cuts atart from basswood which is on the soft side.

Dunno you can carve in almost anything if you want to. Butter, ice, you name it!
If MDF is all you have then give it a go.
In fact I might try it myself. I've got some big pieces of cedar of lebanon I've been saving and would be a pity to waste them on my early carving efforts, if I ever get around to it.

 

[Eshmiel]

I wouldn't practice on MDF. Use common or garden pine which will help you in two ways. You will save your nice sharp edges and prove whether or not they really are sharp as they have to be to get a clean cut in pine.
If not sharp enough then sort that out first. Hardwoods like Lime, basswood, box, walnut, fruitwoods and oak will follow. Most take nice crisp cuts atart from basswood which is on the soft side.

Even pine is difficult to obtain at reasonable prices, these days. But there's plenty of fir and spruce. Also plenty of knots in it. But I may go to the local wood merchant and insist on examining all of their wider whitewood planks for one that at least has substantial areas in it clear of knots.

As you say, if my edges will cut pine/spruce/fir cleanly I must have me sharpening right.

My intention is to try to carve a first "good" relief carving, after all the practice, in cherry. I have a fair amount of that in wide-ish planks and it does have a fine grain for carving even if it is rather tougher than lime and similar. Black walnut is another possibility as I have some wide-ish planks of that too but I imagine it would need the right subject, because its so dark.

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

Whitmore's Timber sponsor this site and do have inexpensive lime carving blocks in their shop.

Whitmore

Contact them for a discount, too

 

[Lons]

Even pine is difficult to obtain at reasonable prices, these days. But there's plenty of fir and spruce. Also plenty of knots in it. But I may go to the local wood merchant and insist on examining all of their wider whitewood planks for one that at least has substantial areas in it clear of knots.

As you say, if my edges will cut pine/spruce/fir cleanly I must have me sharpening right.

My intention is to try to carve a first "good" relief carving, after all the practice, in cherry. I have a fair amount of that in wide-ish planks and it does have a fine grain for carving even if it is rather tougher than lime and similar. Black walnut is another possibility as I have some wide-ish planks of that too but I imagine it would need the right subject, because its so dark.

I know you're in a difficult area of the UK but is there any chance of picking up any old furniture, preferably free. There is an ample supply of old pine and veneered stuff around here. Try Facebook market place , freecycle, Gumtree etc.

Edit
Of course Jacob is right, you can have a go at anything if so inclined but I stick with my comment, I don't recommend MDF

 

[alex robinson]

Having acquired a variety of carving chisels and commissioned them, the next stage in my learning to relief-carve is to follow the Chris Pye YouTube carving course, which involves practicing all the basic cuts on a board of tulipwood (lime being hard to find, expensive and not already in me wood store). Following that, I'll need to practice relief carving on actual projects before attempting one in earnest.

The recommendation for practice and learning is generally to use one of the "easy" woods such as lime, jelutong eastern white pine and so forth. After I use up my last bit of tulipwood on that practice board, I have no such stuff in my woodstore. I generally scavenge timber but there doesn't seem to be a lot (or any) of those "easy" timbers to get for nowt. And they cost, from a timber supplier, rather a lot for even one plank that might be enough for three or four practice carvings.

When looking about the interwebbery spiders' nest of YouTube I came across a channel in which relief carving demonstrations suitable for "biginars" are shown. They're all fairly simple but good-practice carvings in MDF. This surprised me as I didn't think MDF would carve without breaking up uncontrollably; and that the various constituents of MDF would blunt chisel edges in no time. Yet here are these demos.

https://www.youtube.com/@Waseemwoodcarving

Can any carver shed light on this business of carving MDF? Is it a reasonable medium to use for practice? I can obtain free MDF left-overs very easily.

I have some lime I have milled - would be happy to send you some if you covered the postage.

 

[Blackswanwood]

I wouldn’t practice on MDF as I believe a key element of the skill in carving is being able to deal with variations in the grain.