Correctly using a spoon knife

[Andrzej]

What is the best technique to use when carving the bowl of a spoon, how to hold the knife, spoon together to minimise cuts and to use the tool effectively.

Having started on the bowl of my spoon last night, I found it was quite hard going. Is this usually the case or do I have a blunt spoon knife.

I thnik my spoon knife may be a bit blunt, but trying to sharten it as descibed on an earlier thread with some wet and dry paper wrapped around the end of a pencil didn't seem to do much.

Any help/tips would be very much appreciated.

 

[bp1974]

I used my spoon knife for the first time a week or so ago. Mine had a single bevel on the outside edge. If your knife has the bevel on the outside, you should sharpen it on the outside, not the inside. Mine was fairly sharp already so I gave it a few strokes on a leather strop with some abrasive compound to make sure it was up to scratch. Wet and dry might be too abrasive for a new knife, and end up blunting it rather than sharpening it. Stropping is very effective.


I held the spoon in my left hand, and the knife in my right, and drew the blade towards me. I found that using a diagonal slicing action makes for smooth cuts. Trying to drag the blade upright across the wood has little effect and takes effort, whereas using it to slice at an angle was much easier and more effective. Also, I used different parts of the blade for different areas of the spoon bowl, depending on which part of the blade was contacting the wood at a good angle at that place in the bowl.

 

[Andrzej]

Where can you get an abrasive compound to use on a strop?

 

[ESpy]

Autosol from Halfords works.

 

[Andrzej]

Just picked up some Autosol, I'll try it on the inside of my belt and see what it does.