Spoon carving tutorial (How to carve a spoon)

 '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.

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

Spoon carving from the Catskills....

This is a spoon carving story from my good friend Oliver Pratt.

I have asked some of my friends from around the world to send me some photos detailing where they carve and what they carve.

Oliver has been kind enough to send a story with photos.....

Enjoy. J

*******************************

Here are the photos for your blog Jon.

I've followed and loved it ever since I started carving, and your work, help, and kindness has been a big inspiration to me. 

I live in the Catskill mountains in New York state in the US. I've called this area home for most of my life, and though I've lived in a few other places there is nowhere I love more than here. I haven't been carving for very long, less than a year now, but it took hold fast in my life and quickly became something that I do everyday, most days for many hours. In the first photo you can see my shop in the foreground and the small house that I live in with my partner Kaela in the background. My shop used to be the milk house of the barn it's attached to, and the house we live in was once the calf barn.

I carve my treen using only hand tools. I don't think that there is a right and a wrong way to carve, but for me the process of carving by hand without any "power" tools is something I really love. 

The connection to the wood and the shape that I am carving is much greater for me when I use tools that I power with my body. I also find that, for me, the use of hand tools allows me feel the grain and nature of the wood, and it guides me to making shapes that are not only more pleasing to the eye, but also stronger in use. 

I know it sounds a little like what my mother would call "woo woo", but the wood does really let you know what's a good idea and what's not such a good idea, if you are listening.

Most of the wood that I carve is from the mountain I live on, and I'm lucky enough to be able to harvest it as I need it by taking a walk out my back door. Something I'm quite thankful for. 

The last photo in the set is of my two most used spoons. One I made out of birch from the hill, and one by the incomparable Jon Mac. I must admit that I don't use Jon's spoon as often as I'd like because it's quite hard to get to it at dinner time before Kaela does. It's her favourite too.

There you go, a glimpse of what carving looks like in my little corner of the cosmos. I know that Jon is trying to get a few other folks to give us a peek into their's, and I look forward to seeing those when they come about. Thanks again Jon, and thanks to all you folk who make things by hand, I think it's a very important part of being human and it warms my heart that there are people out there who care about it too.

Hope you enjoyed,

~Oliver~