Blog Tag

limewood

Every blog article tagged limewood.

August 10, 2026

How to carve a replacement that matches an antique

A client sent me a photograph and an order for fifteen rosettes. No antique, just the picture. Here is what actually gives a new carving away, and the tool that fixes it.

July 27, 2026

Why Tilman Riemenschneider Left His Limewood Unpainted

Tilman Riemenschneider was one of the first masters to finish limewood without paint. Conservators have shown the surface was never raw wood. It carried a thin tinted glaze, with the eyes and lips painted straight onto the bare limewood underneath.

February 22, 2023

Carving wood wall art that reads from across the room

A carved panel is a size and light problem before it is a carving problem. Here is how big to make it, which wall it belongs on, how deep it has to go, and the two places I would never hang one.

November 14, 2022

What is the best wood for carving, and the four I keep in the shop

Basswood at 410 lbf, and it is not close for a beginner. Here are the real Janka numbers for butternut, walnut and white oak, how to read a board at the yard, and the one board type I ask nobody to bring to class.

July 20, 2021

Woodcarving class in person at Marc Adams School of Woodworking

Five days at a bench in Johnson County farmland, carving a four layer panel in the Grinling Gibbons style out of limewood. Here is what the week is really like, what to bring, and how a Gibbons panel gets finished before Friday.