Sandy knocked down a medium sized oak (red oak I think) at my inlaws house. My FIL wants to see about getting it quarter sawn for me at his local saw mill and then sticker it to let it air dry. In the mean time I was thinking it might be fun to chainsaw off a chunk and try some work in green wood. I've seen Peter Follunsbees appearance on The Woodwrights shop and loved how he split of what I think he called "radial sawn" pieces from a section of trunk. I also noticed that he recently released a video on making a chest and thought it might be fun to give a chest like that a go (maybe with less carving since I've NEVER done any carving).
So my questions.
1) If indeed the tree is red oak, should I even bother. I like QS red oak much better than flat sawn red oak am thinking the split out radial stuff might look nice, but I would be interested in hearing others thoughts since Follunsbee is using white oak for all his stuff.
2) What would I need to make use of a chunk of wet log. A froe? Just some wedges and an appropriate hammer?
3) Carving tools. If I were to get a video or two of his I'm sure he says what to get in terms of sweeps and what not, but I'm wondering what folks recommend in terms of brands of carving tools to get. I think he uses a set of about 6-12 tools for most of his work. What should I expect to spend for a set (by "set" I do not mean prepackaged set) of 6 carving tools? What would I need to get to sharpen them (I have no slips).
4) Curious if anyone here has seen any of Peter Follansbee's videos. If so, how did you like them. I liked his appearance on the Roy's show. He certainly made the carving look less intimidating.
Just sorta thinking about some projects I might like to take on in the coming months. No idea if I'll actually do this but I've been tossing around a number of idea's for upcoming builds and something like this seems like it might be a fun skill builder.