'Happy New Year'
First off I'd like to thank all of you that visit my little blog,
we've reached 250,000 page views.
I never in my wildest dreams expected such support when I first started this blog.
Thank you.
Appreciated.
I thought I'd start the new year with a pictorial spoon carving tutorial.
I've been playing with a design of spoon that I really like the look of.
The spoon is small and delicate, it's not a tyre lever.
It's well suited to for use at the dinner table.
And my female friends love it....
So I'll be carving more for guests.
For this spoon I've used some seasoned apple.
It has been sat in my yard for a long time.
You'll need an Axe, knife, hook knife, sharpening and stropping equipment and a pencil.
I found it to be quite hard, but as long at my edge tools were sharp I had no real problems.
The first thing to do is take a split quarter and square it up.
The blank is approx 6 inches long and an inch or so deep.
I made a pair.
A good sharp axe is needed.
Here you can see the blanks next to my carving axe head for scale.
The finished spoon will be quite short at 5 and a bit inches.
Here's where your stop cut chopping practice will come in handy.
You'll need to add a stop cut both sides to define the bowl.
Be accurate, as the cuts will form the bottom part of the diamond/shield shape that appears before the handle.
Once you've done that, cut out the slope, down into the spoon bowl.
There is a sloped form on this spoon, but not much.
Thin the handle, one side at a time and with a slope that matches the curve introduced on the top of the spoon.
So eventually it looks like a 'tick'.
You can see in this photo that I've started to chop the bowl shape.
Sloping from the bottom of the keel of the spoon up to the lip of the bowl.
You can spend as much or as little time with the axe as you require.
Cutting the back of the diamond/shield shape.
A nice steady thumb push across the grain.
You can just make out my right hand thumb underneath the spoon handle as I carve.
The thumb push is often used in spoon carving.
Coming along.
After a while the blanks start looking good.
The shape is set.
Now to hollow the bowl with a spoon knife.
You can also employ your fingers on the back of the spoon knife.
Don't forget to turn the spoon knife upside-down to access those tricky places.
You don't really need a left and right hand knife.
The bowl will need cleaning up later, it's symmetrical now so I can carry on.
I cut a small chamfer round the edge of the bowl.
For all this knife work, especially the next part, I needed a super sharp knife.
I fettled the knife on a fine natural stone gifted to me by my friend, Sean Hellman.
And lightly stropped on my stropping stick.
Now the blank is close to being finished.
Needs a little sexing up.
For the next stage I used a very pointy MiniMac knife highly sharpened.
In the distant past I've used a craft knife or scalpel for this job.
A pencil is handy.
In the distant past I've used a craft knife or scalpel for this job.
A pencil is handy.
With the pencil, or the spine of the knife, I lightly draw a design.
Holding the knife in a pen hold.
The cross section of these cuts are 'V' shaped.
I start by making a little stab stop cut.
Then I draw the knife away to the end of the cut.
These cuts aren't very deep.
My carving wouldn't be complete without a sun wheel or two.
I draw an eight spot star.
And then start chip carving.
You'll find a pictorial tutorial HERE !
Nearly Done.
And we're done !
I learned today that although it’s fun to try to emulate a design, if it doesn’t come from your own heart, it has no soul. So instead of decorating this spoon with a design not mine, I decided to let the heart rule.
Enjoy !
J.Mac
Very Nice Jon.
ReplyDeleteThank you Martijn.
DeleteGreat to hear from you my friend.
Hugs from me and 'S'.
J
Great looking spoons... thanks for putting up the photo step-by-step, they do help those of us learning the process. Cheers, Doug
ReplyDeleteThank you Doug. I'm glad to be of assistance. It's good to get feed back on these things. Appreciated.
DeleteJ.
Beautiful spoon and super description of the process. Congrats and thanks.
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure Phil.
DeleteGood to hear from you.
J.
Great tutorial Jon, I like the spoons as well!
ReplyDeleteAndre
Cheers Andre. I hope the pictorial tutorial helps in some way. Best wishes and great to yea from you... J
DeleteFantastic spoons the seasoned apple is gorgeous, I made a few things out of apple before Christmas it's a pleasure to work with . I've not dabbled with the chip carving , but I think that will change . Great post Jon thanks for sharing this ;)
ReplyDeleteHi Brian. The apple I'm using at the moment is seasoned. Very tough. However, I'm really enjoying using this wood. I can get a nice sharp finish on it. Have fun with the chip carving. Best wishes... J
DeleteJon, it's really gernerous of you to share your skill and experience like this; thank you. In the last few days, as I've become more comfortable with my new axe I've been delighted to see how far the axe will bring the spoon. I've discovered that, when working with the axe, it helps to have a clear design in mind and have been dabbling with a Scandi style, but I hadn't stopped to think too much about the order of the work. Handle first, bowl first? I'm going to try out the order you suggest. And you've demystified chip carving! Thanks again and may all your cuts be beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThank you for getting in touch Rex. I hope this tutorial is of some use in getting you going with your art. Best wishes... J
DeleteGreat spoons, Jon, as always!
ReplyDeleteAppreciate the artistic pictures, too. Thanks for sharing.
Good to hear from you once more Eugen. Thanks for your support my friend. Best wishes... J
DeleteJon, every time I look at this I see something new. I'm goona have to man up and try to carve one in this style... eventually.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you'll do well Daniel. Let me know how you get on. Good to hear from you. J
DeleteThank you very much. I have always enjoyed your blog!
ReplyDeleteLearn a lot and get much inspiration.
Cheryl