Woodcut Class Coming Soon

Just about two weeks from today will be the first meeting of the latest edition of my Belmar woodcut class.  I have three people already signed up (all new), expect at least two more (class veterans) and it's possible more may join before the first day on March 9th.  Of course, if I have students, I have to make sure I have materials for them.  I've built up a good supply of class tools, got plenty of paper, and I think I have enough ink to get started.  Wood is trickier.  I've been using quarter inch lauan since the early 90's for my own work, and so that's what I've been using for this workshop since I started it.  However, lately the quality of such wood available at the big home chains has been lacking, so I wanted to see what other possibilities were out there.

Over the weekend I stopped at a local lumber yard, the place where I believe Molly got the wood for the table project.  I believe the wood for the tabletops was 3/4" maple plywood- very nice but very heavy and not cheap.  The guy at the counter told me I should just head out to the back sheds and talk to the people there.  Based on my description of the process, the guy suggested using something called MDO, or a medium density overlay panel.  It's a piece of plywood with thin layers of medium density fiberboard, a composite material, bonded to both sides.  I've never used the stuff, but it is popular with some relief printers.  My friends at Drive By Press use it for a lot of their blocks, which get printed hundreds of times as they travel around the country.   The girl who commissioned me to print blocks for her a few years ago had two of them on the two sides of a thick piece of MDF (just composite, no real wood core), and said she preferred it over real wood.  The lumber guy generously gave me a three foot scrap piece to take home and test out.  Later that afternoon I laid the board across my tailgate and drew that tree shape and tried cutting it with my gouges.  It cut cleanly, but I'll want to test it with something more detailed, and then print it.

Today I went out and got something more traditional. At my local big chain I got a piece of half inch birch plywood.  Thicker and heavier than the 1/4" birch I have used, but nice and straight, looks well made, and it has two good sides, which cuts its effective cost in half.  Stopped at the Studio briefly on my way home to cut a small section above off the MDO board so I could take it home to play around with.  Left the 2'x4' birch panel there for now,  to be picked up late next week when I gather all the supplies for the class.