Bad Wood?

To all the carvers out there-

I recently found a piling or a bit of telephone pole lying on the rocks down by the shoreline. After an hour of pulling and hauling, my buddy and myself finally got it home. However I have heard now that such wood used in pilings and telephone poles are "treated" and are not suitable for carving, and may even cause cancer and all kinds of other afflictions. Anyone know anything about this?

Not a carver, but telephone poles , railroad ties, & such are usually treated with creosote.

the telephone poles are treated as you said but you might be able to go to the phone company and get there practice poles which i have heard are not treated. i havn't tried it but i think, but i'm not sure, that the guy from twisted tikis (www.twistedtikis.com) use some of them.

I don't know about practice poles, but telephone poles are treated with two different chemicals...Creosote as a moisture barrier and (very important) Arsenic as an insect barrier like your typical pressure treated wood. I'd stay away. Go to the sawmill and you can get all the wood you want, sometimes for free.

Thanks for the info guys, there is a sawmill about 15 min up the road, so I will check it out.

eh, dem poles are rubish! dey tear up your chainsaw blade plus dey get buku chipped! I would neva lay one of my pretty chizzles on dat junk.

If any wahines wan't to learn how to carve and want a practice log, I have one to practice on!

Mt first attemp at carving was on a railroad tie.
That is a mother Fooker!!!
I beat the hell out of that log for two weeks straight.
Chainsaws have no impact, chisels worked a little, but be prepared to get a lot of splinters and have a lot of breakage.

I eventually finished. It now is burried 3 feet in the yard while 2 feet of carved area is exposed.

My lesson learned!!!

Buy, Borrow, or Steal tiki.... but never carve.

Eh MTKahuna howzit dude,

making any trips back to da islands soon? I owe you big dats why I ask annnnd you didn't show me da tiki your talking about! you wasn't embarresed of your carving ya?

This braddah has some ono peices in his collection. If you live by, you gotta go see'em! He's in da L.A area.

and jes, no use railroad or Telepoles!

"Practice Pole's R US"

Hey Gecko...
Nobody gonna see that reck! It's in the yard for good.... When I go, it's gonna stay!
My neighbors are gonna try and burn it down.

No mo carving fo me. I will look for beat-up tiki's and try to repair them wit wood putty...

Brah... I didn't know that TC had a big schedule set for you when you came to Cali. If I'd known, I wouldn't have made you go to da show at 2:00am... you could of slept til 5 eh... :)
Once a year... it is a no sleep weekend.

I'll be back on da island next year... I was gonna go for Xmas but I will be in New York.

I wanna get to the Big Island...

Tell Ailey I said "Aloha sista"
laterz

Yippee A'Kai Yay!

[ Edited by: MTKahuna on 2003-08-13 17:43 ]