I wanted to carve a basic cup out of a single piece of wood. This was my first attempt at such a thing.
Part way through a crack began to form. Following advice I had on here I boiled the cup in salted water to stabilise the crack. I then filled the crack with araldite by "flossing" it into the crack with a piece of thread. It was then sanded smooth.
I gave it one last soaking in warm water to lift the grain and sanded again. After this I oiled it with roasted sesame oil, mostly because I liked the dark colour. It has however imparted a lot of flavour to the wood so unless that dies down this will have to be a gravy jug
That might actually work because it wound up with a wee notch in the rim that I couldn't carve out, so that could be the spout 
The wood had different densities throughout so it was quite challenging to carve it. I found that soft areas immediately next to hard areas had a tendency to wear thinner than I wanted simply because strokes aimed at the hard area would overrun.
The results are obviously not anything like symmetrical and I had hoped to be able to carve it thinner and with a more elegant shape. As it turns out the wood was for the most part very hard so I don't think that would be possible. However it is definitely a cup, it is water tight and the grain looks nice so I am happy (for a first attempt certainly!).
I had to carve it in stages over a 2 week period, as I found an afternoon's carving left me with extremely sore wrists. I wonder if this is something that will lessen the more I do it?
So it went from this:
To this:
Part way through a crack began to form. Following advice I had on here I boiled the cup in salted water to stabilise the crack. I then filled the crack with araldite by "flossing" it into the crack with a piece of thread. It was then sanded smooth.
I gave it one last soaking in warm water to lift the grain and sanded again. After this I oiled it with roasted sesame oil, mostly because I liked the dark colour. It has however imparted a lot of flavour to the wood so unless that dies down this will have to be a gravy jug
That might actually work because it wound up with a wee notch in the rim that I couldn't carve out, so that could be the spout The wood had different densities throughout so it was quite challenging to carve it. I found that soft areas immediately next to hard areas had a tendency to wear thinner than I wanted simply because strokes aimed at the hard area would overrun.
The results are obviously not anything like symmetrical and I had hoped to be able to carve it thinner and with a more elegant shape. As it turns out the wood was for the most part very hard so I don't think that would be possible. However it is definitely a cup, it is water tight and the grain looks nice so I am happy (for a first attempt certainly!).
I had to carve it in stages over a 2 week period, as I found an afternoon's carving left me with extremely sore wrists. I wonder if this is something that will lessen the more I do it?
So it went from this:
To this:
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