So the spoon rests safely on the block, and you work gently across the grain, hollowing steadily away. No one in Britain, in short, knows more about crafting a spoon from greenwood than Barn the Spoon. Use a rounded gouge to carve out the bowl of the spoon.
The hook knife can cut or it can scrape to smooth out the bowl and bring it almost to its finished smoothness. Keep the handle scrap under the handle to make it easier to clamp and to keep your carving level. Make shallow https://bestwoodcarvingtool.com/how-to-carve-wooden-spoon/ stop cuts, using either a bench knife or gouge, on the line indicating the inside edge of the spoon’s bowl. Then, carve in a curved path from these stop cuts down to the Forstner bit cut using the 3/4″-wide #9 gouge.
- The images below show a collection of beautiful spoons made at Finca Palugo.
- Keep carving the wood until the hollows are completely smooth.
- Note that the bevel on the drawknife is down, which allows me to pull out of curves more easily, and that the blade of the knife is slightly askew to the cut.
- Perfect for those times when you can’t access any local wood, or when you’re not fully confident in your axe work.
- Create notch for drive center.Close-up view.Hole drilled for live center.Step 5.
The name relates either to it’s tendency to lose branches in high winds or as a counter to Sugar maple Acer saccharum, which is also known as Hard maple . The freezer kept my wood from drying while I waited for the weather to cool enough to make outdoor projects a reasonable pursuit. To make my spoons, I first selected a few healthy, thick logs, and sliced them lengthwise into 1-2″ thick slabs, with the grain running down the slab lengthwise. Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop.
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It’s the tool you’ll need to hollow out the bowl of the spoon, though some makers prefer using hot embers to do this, as Michael Dammer recommends below – I’ve yet to try this method, though. If you’re using a knife, aim to create a clean edge around the bowl and employ a scooping, twisting action to carve out spirals of shavings, without ‘tearing’ the fibres of the wood. To begin, you’ll need to find a suitable piece of wood!
Shape the bowl of the spoon, cutting off any lines that you have drawn. Some woods are not so good, some are more difficult to carve, and some cannot even be carved. You should avoid those with a strong scent as some contain a type of chemical within the odour that can cause headaches. The dust from many kinds of wood can be quite toxic and so you should make sure to wear a mask, protective gloves for your hands, and any other necessary safety equipment.
This is both for safety and because nothing trashes an edge faster than a knock against anything metal or ceramic. These stop cuts are also at least a quarter inch up from my actual line to give me some insurance against an errant tap of the axe creating a stress fracture within the wood. Now I use the axe and that club I mentioned before (see it?) to gently split the excess wood off how to whittle a spoon the side of the handle. I prefer handles that taper to the neck because if you orient them correctly in the log, the wood splits and cuts cleanly down to the neck without running into it. But sometimes this is not the case and you need to cut sharply down to the stop cut with the axe to remove the waste. This takes longer but allows you to deal with less than ideal grain orientation.
Cutting Out The Blank:
As a beginner, it’s best to source a piece from aa seasoned woodpile, or ask a local carpenter if you can buy a few offcuts, which can be a fun experience in itself. In Mexico, for instance, there are carpinterías in every town; chatting with them is a way of finding out about the different trees that can be found locally. Older branches are unlikely to be suitable, as they’re often cracked inside, or are likely to crack when you start working on them.
Keep smoothing out your handle and the bottom of your bowl with the rasp until you’re happy with the shape. Hold the handle of the gouge with your dominant hand at a slight angle toward your spoon, and support the top of it with your non-dominant hand. Push the u-shaped point into the bowl of your spoon where it connects to the handle, following along with the wood grain so your bowl looks uniform. After you shave about 1 in (2.5 cm), bring the handle of the gouge close to the spoon to break off the wood shaving. Continue shaving wood from the bowl until it’s as deep as you want. The final step before finishing the spoon is to burnish it.
On the bottom of your spoon’s bowl, remove the bulk of the stock by cutting large facets. You’ll refine the shape as you go.As you shape the outside of the bowl, pause regularly to gauge the thickness of the bowl by pinching it between your fingers. In theory, the outside of the bowl should be the same shape as the inside, and it should be the same thickness from the tip to the shoulders. In practice, the thickness can vary quite a bit front to back. Just make sure not to leave too much wood on the underside of the bowl, especially near the rim. The underside of a spoon should slope gently so that it will easily scrape the bottom of a pan or the inside of a mixing bowl.
I soon learned that he does this every time he goes camping, and I thought it was a pretty cool way to spend time at the campsite. I’ve always wondered https://bestwoodcarvingtool.com/ and what I would need to do it. I got lucky that day because he gave me a spoon carving kit so I could get started. I’ve carved four or five since then, and while I’m no expert, I can show you what you need to get started. Use card scrapers to remove tool marks and tearout.