Hello from a new spoonmaker in West Wales.

[Lataxe]

I'm a long time woodworker of the cabinetmaking kind - with some past experience in green woodworking making ladderback chairs, swills, hurdles and stools - new to carving spoons but with a hope to expand this into general carving over time. I've been at the spoons for about 6 weeks.

I'm retired for 18 years now, with a range of other pastimes & hobbies including cycling, forest & fell walking with the dogs, swimming and (of course) various kinds of woodworking. I live near Lampeter in West Wales, although I was born & bred a geordie in South Tyneside before spending 50 years in NW England around Lancaster, moving to West Wales five years ago.

So far I've carved 15 items - spoons, butter knives, spatulas and a ladle, all as practice pieces to acquire the axe and knife skills, using goat willow cut in the garden. I have a local friend who is more experienced in spoon carving who teaches me these skills one evening a week in exchange for cake and tea.

Naturally all this is an excuse to acquire more man-toys of the tool ilk - so far the inexpensive basic type ..... but I have a list of others "for the future". ......

Looking forward to learning a lot more here, especially about various green timbers and their qualities but also about various other bushcraft stuff.

 

[crosslandkelly]

Hi, welcome and enjoy.

 

[Broch]

Hi, welcome to the Forum

 

[Wayne]

Welcome to the forum. I look forward to seeing pictures of your work.

 

[demented dale]

I'm a long time woodworker of the cabinetmaking kind - with some past experience in green woodworking making ladderback chairs, swills, hurdles and stools - new to carving spoons but with a hope to expand this into general carving over time. I've been at the spoons for about 6 weeks.

I'm retired for 18 years now, with a range of other pastimes & hobbies including cycling, forest & fell walking with the dogs, swimming and (of course) various kinds of woodworking. I live near Lampeter in West Wales, although I was born & bred a geordie in South Tyneside before spending 50 years in NW England around Lancaster, moving to West Wales five years ago.

So far I've carved 15 items - spoons, butter knives, spatulas and a ladle, all as practice pieces to acquire the axe and knife skills, using goat willow cut in the garden. I have a local friend who is more experienced in spoon carving who teaches me these skills one evening a week in exchange for cake and tea.

Naturally all this is an excuse to acquire more man-toys of the tool ilk - so far the inexpensive basic type ..... but I have a list of others "for the future". ......

Looking forward to learning a lot more here, especially about various green timbers and their qualities but also about various other bushcraft

welcome to the forum enjoy x

 

[Lataxe]

Hello all - thanks for the welcome.

Perhaps as you'd expect, I'm mostly interested just now in some of the bushcraft technology used to shape wood; and in the (green) wood itself. I have lots of experience and knowledge with cabinetmaking hand tools but none with knives and only a little (from 15 years ago doing some coppice work) with implements such as froe, axe and adz.

At present I'm using inexpensive Beavercraft knives ( sloyd and chip carving knives) whilst trying to work out what the best edges profiles are, which knives work best for what and how to keep them truly sharp. Any general advice or pointers to info elsewhere would be very welcome.

Part of the new spoon carving thing is to learn some of the decorative effects and techniques - chip carving and kolrosing being those I want to attempt and become competent at. Chip carving knives are numerous but no one seems to make a kolrosing knife. Various web posters show how to make such a knife yourself, which I will try (I currently like to make tools for cabinetmaking purposes) but it would be convenient to be able to buy a kolrosing knife that doesn't cost £100 for a small piece of wood and an even smaller bit of metal, from the one small maker I discovered selling one on Etsy!

Does anyone have advice about buying or making a kolrosing knife?

 

[John Fenna]

Hello and welcome from Cardigan way
I use an Exacto scalpel type knife (or similar) for Kolrosing - and cinnamon as the bark powder... it works well!

 

[Kepis]

Welcome to the forum.

On the rare occasion i do any Kolrossing on treen I do much the same as John above, i just use a Stanley knife blade, wrapped in electrical/gaffer tape leaving just a tiny point free, cheap as chips and does the job.

 

[Lataxe]

Hello both,

Thanks for the advice - I have both those knife types so I had a go this afternoon. They are usable, as you say, although the blades and points are very thin so produce kolrosing lines that are very delicate looking. That's quite good for some designs but I've seen various kolrosing vids on UBoob that use a thicker-bladed knife to make wider cuts for designs that vary the line thickness to add more .... realism; variety?

The vids of folk making their own kolrosing knives seem to suggest that these thicker-bladed knives are needed to make more substantive marks by cutting deeper, which also then makes the cuts wider - although others seem to use a thin blade with two slanted & parallel cuts to take out a thin strip of wood to get a thicker line .... almost a chip carving method.

*********
I suppose that, like everything else, its best to experiment with various tools and techniques to get the experience of what works to achieve what (as well as to learn from the no doubt many mistakes that I'll make).

The best effects I've managed so far were with a standard chip carving knife of the rounded top and straight blade edge, with the edge and the tip pointing downwards rather than being parallel with the handle. But that too tends to produce only the thinnest of lines. It is much more controllable than trying to use the point of a sloyd knife, though! And you don't have to hold the blade (shudder - I faint at the sight of blud).

 

[Lataxe]

On another note - anyone used diamond paste on a rotating disc of wood, leather or MDF to get a scary sharp edge on their knives? I have some of this paste for making cabinetmaking paring chisels with a 20 degree cutting edge very sharp indeed. Do knives benefit from "sharp as you can get them" or is there a better and lesser degree of sharp that's more resilient for knives used to whittle and carve?

 

[Mesquite]

Hello and welcome to the Forum

 

[Brizzlebush]

Welcome along from a fellow lover of woodworking.

 

[Tony]

Good to have you on the forums, Lataxe; I'm looking forward to seeing your creations. It might be worth starting a few new threads with your questions, then they'll stay focused on what you want to know.

I've got the same background as you in cabinet making, the skills transfer easily, just that familiarity with woods and tools goes a long way.

Have you seen the BushMoot's? You'd get plenty of hands-on help and practice in there, lots of carving and making things. There's a Sumemr one coming up in July, Summer BushMoot. We're just revamping the site at the moment so forgive any errant pages!

Thanks for joining Bushcraft UK