Another beech spoon

[tombear]

No worries, I got the stuff free, just fed it through the band saw. There's a patchy softness to it that means it turns poorly but with sharp tools it carves fine.

Im looking for some more of the bent neck gouges, I regret not getting them when I had the chance. I've plenty of normal straight in and outcanal ones but I find the bent ones a joy to use. I must sharpen them tonight to be honest, I was a bit lazy and bashed on with them when the hawthorn was being a bit tough.

I restored these Sorby goose necks a while back and apart from making a leather roll for them haven't touched them since.

To be honest I'm not sure if theirs a different technique for using them. Ill just have to bash some wood and see.

atb

tom

 

[forginhill]

This is my go-to gouge for spoons. I want to make one or two more that are wider. Do you like them more bent than this one? I watched some youtube videos of spoon carvers and made this one modeled after what they were using. It's worked really well for me, but my perspective is pretty narrow because I haven't tried anything else.

 

[tombear]

Here's a side view of the ones I use. I tend to use the 2nd one up far more than the others. I use a small mallet for most of the cutting and just finish with pushing, if that's the correct term. I rarely use the top two.

That's a grand one you've made! Do you have any with a more pronounced curve to the cutting edge for going deeper? I'd have real trouble doing the deep cawl/soup spoons without the tighter curved sort.

atb

tom

l

 

[forginhill]

Thanks for the pic. How wide is that one you like using most?

I do have one with more curve to it. I'll see if I can get a photo of it, but I haven't used it much.

 

[tombear]

It's almost spot on a inch wide.

Just setting up the Tormek 7 to sharpen them and my turning chisels when we get back. At 5 we are visiting a kind lady in town who has some fresh cut sycamore for us , she responded to a freecycle wanted notice I put up yesterday. Another chap says he has some oak he will donate and a 8" dia stump of sycamore about 5 foot high I can cut some from.

infact it will be a mammoth sharpening session as the kitchen knives need sorting and at the 1st boot this am I got 5 old but not resharpened 2 lions Sabatier cooks knives for a tenner. They've been blunted in use and then put back in their wallets and stuffed in a cupboard for 30 years or more. Just the job as our old ones had become concave from my lousy resharpening.

Atb

tom

 

[tombear]

Well that was excellent.

real nice folks and now I have two two foot +. Chunks of sycamore, ones got about 10 inch usable dia and the other 8.

i'll split it tomorrow as it knackered us carrying it up to the top floor shed. There's some shakes were they are starting to split I can work from and ill get it cut into blanks as soon as I can.

Excuse the poor pic, there's a lot of light coming in from the windows of a evening.

Theres a flatish section that looks promising for a dough trough...

atb

Tom

 

[forginhill]

Sounds like you're set up for awhile with wood now! I should put up a similar ad myself and see what happens. That pic of the gouges from the end was perfect and thanks for measuring it. Gives me a guide to go by when I make some more of my own. Will be looking for that dough trough or whatever else you get inspired to make....

 

[tombear]

Cheers! The dough trough is off the menu this time as I had a bit of a disaster. We debarked the wood ( after some experimentation the absolute best thing was a giant, comedy sized screwdriver herself got me from a chandlers they were selling off. The blades a inch wide at the working end with a blunt Scandi grind to it, easier to do a pic of it. You see old ones on boots a lot for next to nowt.

Anyroad using the incipient cracks as a guide i we split the bowl blanks up but I discovered you can't cut a 10 inch long length ways with a 8 inch recip saw, working from opposite sides. The saw cut fine but the blade wandered inside the block as soon as it got from the ends. Oops. You can get 12 inch recip blades I've since discovered. When the two parts wouldn't separate I used a froe down the cut and then resorted to some beech wedges. I ended up with there's chavelled pieces. Good for making the foot long ladles I want to do but not for a 5 inch deep dough trough. It was always going to be a bit marginal , really I need a 12 x 5 x 24 inch slab of heart wood from a beeeg trunk but I was looking forward to using my bowl adze. Ill have to do something smaller.

Today it will be mainly band sawing and sealing with some paraffin wax I was given.

atb

tom

 

[tombear]

I've been rescue using the wood I split with the recip saw, getting chunks suitable for spoons or small turning jobs. I roughed out a 18th c oatcake ladle with the proper 7 or 8 inch long hooked handle and with much trepidation mounted it on the lathe. It had been a bit hairy doing the trial on with a plain 4 inch handle with the handle whizzing round but with a long handle sticking out the whole lathe, and it's a big mother, took off! I switched off and dispmounted the piece from the plate less i try it again!

this leaves several pspossibilities the

(A) the bowl was turned out of a full disk of wood 20 odd inches across and a vat amount was wasted
(B) the bowl was hollowed out from the centre of a split branch, like a two bladed propellor and one blade was later cut off
or (C) some sort of giant drill or spinning steel plate the profile of the hole was used to cut out the bowls interior.

ive gone for D, bowl adzing and gouging the sucker out!

Its roughed out now and with copious scraping and sanding it will be finished to the line and then ill surform and carve the outside to shape.

the Budd bowl adze was a joy to use but like a coward I only rough out the inside with it. With more practice ill allow my slf to work closer to the finish line but it cleared it out grand.

i love green sycamore! If it splits, tough but it's a joy to cut.

atb

tom

 

[Robson Valley]

I see that you are well on your way to "learning" the wood. While a bowl adze works wonders on the insides, it is altogether the wrong sweep for outsides.
I used a spokeshave then a great 1S/25e (Peil) skew for the outside shapes.
Your spoons are fast becoming museum replicas. Well done.

I agree about the waste carving/turning a bowl. My feast dishes are no more than 10-15% of the wood. Only a disappointment when wood is in short supply.
There is a specific turning tool made for producing a nested set of bowls from a single wood block.
While I've seen the results, I don't know who forges the tool (long hook-shanked thing with a wicked little point.)

 

[tombear]

Cheers!
I've abandoned the scraping and sanding as the original held in the reserve wasn't particularly well finished. I'm pretty pleased with it, the dimensions are spot on, despite a strong urge to thin it down, I may be a little out on th profile of the bowl but its the right dia and depth inside and out.

I've given it a quick rub with walnut and it's now in a big box of the still damp sawdust to slow the drying down so hopefully it won't split. There's 2 more blanks to make a Mk 2 and 3 in due course.

ATB

Tom

 

[tombear]

And a second, same dimensions just a variation in the shape of the bowl to look like one I saw on the net.

Now buried in the damp sawdust making it generated.

Think ill do a bowl on the lathe next....

ATB

Tom