Spooncarving... Without a hook knife.

A friend of mine in Croatia showed me a photograph of a spoon she had carved. She has no specialist bushcraft tools so used her imagination and came up with a splendid idea, she used some broken glass. 

This got me thinking, how do I carve a spoon bowl without a hook knife. I know you can use a hot coal and a straw to carefully burn a depression in a bowl, but this often ends up with cracking if not done extremely carefully. Then I remembered the friction fire lighting blog I posted a little while ago.

I carved out a rough spoon shape and applied fire lighting logic...

Here is the rough spoon blank. I marked the centre of the bowl and with my knife I cut some semi circles....

Cut across the grain and angle the knife tip at about 30 degrees...

Scratch out the waste wood and you are left with a nice depression in which to seat your drill...

Using the same technique as in the fire lighting, bow until you see some coal forming around the bottom of the drill...

With this technique you will have to regularly remove the coal dust.

You can help the process along by niching the depression from time to time...

After some time you will end up with a nice uniform bowl shape...

With your knife, carve the spoon shape you desire...

To finish your spoon scrape it carefully until smooth all over...

And then oil...

ENJOY...J

Coffee stained Kuksa...Finished....

Some photographs of the Kuksa I was staining a few days ago...

 

Here it is in the staining process...

This may well end up as a gift...

Wont be long before the apple harvest...

 Enjoy...J

Measuring spoon...

A newly oiled Laburnum coffee measuring spoon...

I cant get over the way the oil brings out the beautiful colours...

Enjoy...J

The good. The bad. And the ugly...

I've been quite busy this week. I've spent some time trying out new designs for Kuksa and making more coffee spoons. I'm going to be brave and let you have a look at a couple of disasters...

The good. The bad. And the ugly...

The Kuksa in the foreground is my usual shape, and perhaps the Kuksa top left may have some mileage in it's design, although sadly I included some shake, or cracking, when I cut the billet, so no points there. And the top right is utterly hopeless as it neither looks attractive nor stands up...

It's fair to say that the two pieces at the rear took up a lot of time and effort for nought, but I have learned that it is worth taking the time to experiment, and have fun with this art of ours. I had a good chat with a neighbour of mine today, and one thing that was said that always remains lodged in the memory box is...
'A man who never made a mistake, never made anything'...

Here is a photograph of a new Kuksa being soaked in coffee...

I will leave it to soak overnight and then let the Kuksa dry out completely, before giving it a light sanding and then a good oiling...

Eventually it will look like this...

I should have a little more time this week for a longer blog. All the best for now...J

Enjoy...