Firstly Hello!
I've been lurking around on the back ground of this forum for a few weeks, well since my wife bought me a couple of carving knives for my birthday (a frost crook knife and a frost 120 carving knife).
I hope no one minds but I thought I share my first experience of carving spoons, although having seen so many photos of peoples work on here I feel my spoons probably look like the creations of young child with no co-ordination but as I read someone say if it looks like a spoon and works like a spoon, its a spoon!
Having never really carved before off I found the tips on this forum really helpful in how to start, carve safely and avoid common mistakes (so oddly thank you for helping even though you probably didn't realise you were)!
Off I went in the garage and grabbed some wood, the only thing to hand was some old dry pine struts from a cheap bed base probably 15 years old (I appreciate now probably not the best starter wood, it is fibrous lots of knots and splits very easily).
I drew out the spoon shape and off I went... In the photos the smaller spoon is my first attempt
The big notch in the handle was where I got a bit over excited and went too quick causing the pine to split, the plank was 90mm wide and maybe 15mm-20mm deep so took a lot of carving down with the frost 120 to get to the drawn out shape of the spoon!
But I quite like the error as its a good reminder to slow down and enjoy the process! Its not a production line to produce spoons at the fastest rate!
The larger spoon was my second and is quite a-symmetrical as I didn't draw any shape on the wood at all I was just experimenting in following the grain and seeing what emerged.
Unfortunately they don't have much profile vertically due to the width of the starting wood and my distinct lack of skill! lol
So first two spoon (well spoons more or less
) are complete and my other half kind of patted me on the head with a "that's very nice dear" then resumed watching the Olympics.. The next day she comes to me and says... you know we need some salad servers and a salad bowl...any chance of making something useful? (I was a bit taken a back .. I mean what could be more useful than a spoon right? i'd like to see you eat soup with a folk I thought to myself.. while laughing in my own head at my rapier wit. Obviously I didn't vocalise any of this for fear of the repercussions).
Next thing I know I'm on the phone to my brother who works as a ranger in Hampshire (I think she must use hypnotism or something but I don't remember the section of my life between the salad bowl conversation and the phone call)
Conversation went:
Me "Got any wood big enough to make a salad bowl from?"
Brother " Shame we chopped out a load of walnut trees last week but its all gone now, couple of the guys took a few bits for spoon making or something... I'll see what I can find for you, quite a bit of clearing in the next few weeks"
So to cut a very long story in to just a long story I'm looking for some advice. I have an axe but an incident involving my thumb, an axe and an island in Sweden resulting in a lot of stitches (from a friends mum!) 26 years ago when I was a 13year old boy has put me off shaping it without professional guidance using the axe method.
How hand would it be to do with gouge chisels? I don't have any so was just going to take a punt.. am I biting off more than I can chew? and if I pull it off will I get more than a pat on the head and a "that's nice dear"?
Any advice on this would be well received, sorry for the long post and thank you if you made it this far through! Hopefully my spoons will improve and my brother will buy me some time to practice before delivering some wood!
I've been lurking around on the back ground of this forum for a few weeks, well since my wife bought me a couple of carving knives for my birthday (a frost crook knife and a frost 120 carving knife).
I hope no one minds but I thought I share my first experience of carving spoons, although having seen so many photos of peoples work on here I feel my spoons probably look like the creations of young child with no co-ordination but as I read someone say if it looks like a spoon and works like a spoon, its a spoon!
Having never really carved before off I found the tips on this forum really helpful in how to start, carve safely and avoid common mistakes (so oddly thank you for helping even though you probably didn't realise you were)!
Off I went in the garage and grabbed some wood, the only thing to hand was some old dry pine struts from a cheap bed base probably 15 years old (I appreciate now probably not the best starter wood, it is fibrous lots of knots and splits very easily).
I drew out the spoon shape and off I went... In the photos the smaller spoon is my first attempt
The big notch in the handle was where I got a bit over excited and went too quick causing the pine to split, the plank was 90mm wide and maybe 15mm-20mm deep so took a lot of carving down with the frost 120 to get to the drawn out shape of the spoon!
But I quite like the error as its a good reminder to slow down and enjoy the process! Its not a production line to produce spoons at the fastest rate!
The larger spoon was my second and is quite a-symmetrical as I didn't draw any shape on the wood at all I was just experimenting in following the grain and seeing what emerged.
Unfortunately they don't have much profile vertically due to the width of the starting wood and my distinct lack of skill! lol
So first two spoon (well spoons more or less
) are complete and my other half kind of patted me on the head with a "that's very nice dear" then resumed watching the Olympics.. The next day she comes to me and says... you know we need some salad servers and a salad bowl...any chance of making something useful? (I was a bit taken a back .. I mean what could be more useful than a spoon right? i'd like to see you eat soup with a folk I thought to myself.. while laughing in my own head at my rapier wit. Obviously I didn't vocalise any of this for fear of the repercussions). Next thing I know I'm on the phone to my brother who works as a ranger in Hampshire (I think she must use hypnotism or something but I don't remember the section of my life between the salad bowl conversation and the phone call)
Conversation went:
Me "Got any wood big enough to make a salad bowl from?"
Brother " Shame we chopped out a load of walnut trees last week but its all gone now, couple of the guys took a few bits for spoon making or something... I'll see what I can find for you, quite a bit of clearing in the next few weeks"
So to cut a very long story in to just a long story I'm looking for some advice. I have an axe but an incident involving my thumb, an axe and an island in Sweden resulting in a lot of stitches (from a friends mum!) 26 years ago when I was a 13year old boy has put me off shaping it without professional guidance using the axe method.
How hand would it be to do with gouge chisels? I don't have any so was just going to take a punt.. am I biting off more than I can chew? and if I pull it off will I get more than a pat on the head and a "that's nice dear"?
Any advice on this would be well received, sorry for the long post and thank you if you made it this far through! Hopefully my spoons will improve and my brother will buy me some time to practice before delivering some wood!
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