Tuesday 13 July 2010

Spoon Carving...

It is an exciting time for me at the moment.
I am presently working with Christopher Grant on a design for a very usable and quick carving knife. He is a very well known Bladesmith who lives in a beautiful part of  West Scotland. He will have a prototype made up shortly and as soon as I can I will post some photographs. In the mean time it occurred to me that I haven't written about how to make a simple spoon...
The weather here has been wonderful these last few weeks and I have spent lots of time under the Golden Ash carving out some spoons for our next show.
I also thought it was high time I made a spoon for Sarah.
She sees so many spoons leaving for other homes that sometimes she fells a little left out...
Start off  by finding yourself a piece of green wood wide enough, plus a bit, that will accommodate the size of spoon you have in mind. Try and find a piece of Birch or Sycamore to start with as these woods lend themselves to spoon carving.

I salvaged a piece of Birch I had forgotten about in the garage and split a good sized billet from it, making sure before I began that the wood was sound, without any signs of splitting....

spoon carving


spoon maker

The first thing to do is remove the bark, then roughly shape out the top face of the spoon with your sharp Axe...

spoon carving+devon

Make it straight it you wish or make it s little more feminine with a nice sweep...
Chop in the shoulders of the bowl. These cuts will also act as stop cuts when you start to reveal the handle sides...

spoon carving

Once you have the shoulders cut in, remove the waste wood along the handle with either feather cuts or simply split the wood away...

spoon maker

Here's what should be left...

how to make a spoon

The next thing to do is carefully cut in a tilt to the bowl...

how to carve a spoon

And you will produce something  like this...

carve a wooden spoon

Chop out the underside of the handle, keeping a nice sweep...

spoon maker

And finally chop out the underside of the bowl...

spoon carving

From this blank you can start with your carving knife. Carefully removing all that isn't needed.
Probably time for a coffee at this stage...

spoon carving

I like to make my spoons as flowing as possible. Although this is harder and takes longer to achieve, I find the end result very pleasing...

spoon maker

The final shape is beginning to appear...

spoon maker

You will now have to pay some attention to cutting out the bowl using your spoon knife...

spoon carver

Cutting across the grain...

spoon carving



spoon making south west

Now is the time to make another pot of coffee and start some old fashioned scraping until the spoon is smoother, ready for a little glass paper...

spoon carving south west

Scrape, drink and eat...

spoon carving

Until...

spoon making

Henny Penny, the wonderchicken says your work is done...

spoon carving south west

Oh and not forgetting Floppity Flo...

spoon carving
I am sure Sarah will love her new spoon.
I am taking details for courses over the summer for small groups, drop me a line at...
firststeps@thewood.eclipse.co.uk

Any questions then feel free to post a comment or even E mail me...



Enjoy...




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