Pear spoon, part 2

[punkrockcaveman]

I think pear is my favourite wood to carve out of what I have tried so far. It's a bit like a very firm cheddar- there are softer woods to carve like willow and birch, but I find they are easy to mess up for the same reasons. Where as ash on the other hand is hard graft on the hands and your nice sharp tools.

I tried to be a bit more Scandinavian in style with this one. I'm not sure about the underneath of the back of the spoon- it's a bit sharp for me but I like the shallow bowl and flat handle, it's comfy to use. My last pear spoon was carved with the bowl carved into the bark side- this one was toward the pith instead, so rather than having rings in the bowl it's created a really nice zigzag that I wasn't expecting. I've got a billet of pear ready that is radially cut too, which should make stripes in the bowl, that's the plan anyway.

 

[Kadushu]

I like the strength of the harder woods. You can carve the spoon very thin and elegant, as you have here, without fear of it being fragile.

 

[Elsenham 177]

Love the grain patterning on the spoon.

 

[Nice65]

Nice mate, I can see from the symmetry you’re definitely getting your eye in.

 

[Billy-o]

That's a great performance, there! I really like the bottom of the spoon. Got something both timeless and very modern about it. The way the stripes change direction from the handle to the bowl is lovely; let's you really meditate a bit on the making of it.

 

[crosslandkelly]

Nice job.

 

[Mesquite]

That's a lovely spoon carve from some beautiful wood

 

[Robson Valley]

Wood carvers are so much alike, the world over. Part of the puzzle is to "learn the wood." You are well on your way to mastering pear.

 

[Muddypaws]

Beautiful!

Sent from my Nokia T20 using Tapatalk

 

[punkrockcaveman]

Nice mate, I can see from the symmetry you’re definitely getting your eye in.

Thanks it's funny how I finished this and thought there's a lot I can improve then I compare to this last spoon and I can see where I've come from, I find symmetry a hard one but I find myself picking up the spoon and looking more, less time cutting more looking?

Wood carvers are so much alike, the world over. Part of the puzzle is to "learn the wood." You are well on your way to mastering pear.

Thanks RV, I'm still making plenty of mistakes and I'm still getting my head around some of the more efficient knife grips and grain direction, I've ordered a Mora 106 as my wee 50mm DIY carver is a bit soft in the tempering and the bevels are a bit small and slightly convexed so I'm not getting quite the bite into the wood I'm looking for.

 

[Robson Valley]

Look at a top quality left and right pair (or 2-edge) of farrier's hoof trimming crooked knife. The bevels need to come down from 25 degrees to 12-15 degrees. I've done 3 or 4 pairs for myself and altered the scorp-tips to get into tight radius curves.
Even the worn down used ones from a farrier have a life-time of wood carving steel left in them.

 

[punkrockcaveman]

Look at a top quality left and right pair (or 2-edge) of farrier's hoof trimming crooked knife. The bevels need to come down from 25 degrees to 12-15 degrees. I've done 3 or 4 pairs for myself and altered the scorp-tips to get into tight radius curves.
Even the worn down used ones from a farrier have a life-time of wood carving steel left in them.

I'll definitely take a look RV, I'm currently using a wood tools uk compound curve spoon knife for the bowl work, I quite fancy the open curve one for a smoother finish though. Then there seems to be a lot of folk using twca cams in place of spoon knives, I'd like one for attempting a kuksa but I'm enjoying going out into the woods with a pretty compact kit for spoon carving. Do they use twca cams over your way? Or similar tools?

 

[Robson Valley]

Most of North America uses straight knives and conventional gouges, maybe with a mallet. I can't imagine what a twca cam shape might be. Here in the Pacific Northwest, there's a very strong body of First Nations art and carving from 60' totem poles down to kerf bent boxes and rattles.

These things are made with adzes for the rough out (chain saws when nobody is looking) then crooked knives of all sorts of bends or sweeps for the knife work.

After dabbling with repurposed farrier's knives and the gouges for a decade, I made a major shift to learn more about the carving tools of the PacNW. I learned that there are some top quality blade smiths who make just about all the tools . Or just the blades if you want to make your own handles and that's another clever bit of geometry in itself.

So here I am, 10-12 years later, very happy to use the crooked knives of the First Nations carving community. Gregg and Charlie forge just about all the blades you might need. I find that their big knife, a 'C' bend, is the one that I pick up most often for general carving purposes. As you can see, the sweep of the blade would be ideal for spoons. They are double edged so you can carve left and right without needing a second knife in a pair.
http://www.kestreltool.com/

 

[Robson Valley]

I looked it up. The twca cam sweep is similar to an uncommon shape here in the Pacific Northwest (see Lee Valley # 06D1041.)
I suggest that you would be far better off with something with a sweep tip (see Lee Valley # 06D1034.) There are better bladesmiths than the one LV markets.

Tradition says you make your own blades from sawmill blade scrap or even the leaf spring strips of steel for adzes. I'm just as happy to depend upon the decades of experience that bladesmiths already have.

 

[punkrockcaveman]

Those Kestrel tools look the business. Those crooked knives knives are very similar to my current spoon knife, the compound curve from wood tools uk https://wood-tools.co.uk/tools/spoon-knife-right-hand-compound-curve/

The twca cam is designed to be the same radius all the way around the curve with a long handle for extra leverage (to my knowledge anyway) they are getting very popular over here. I think they are a bit overgunned for eating spoons that I am currently making but probably more worthwhile for kuksa and larger spoons bowls etc. They seem to come into there own for a good quality finish in deeper bowls.

 

[Wildpiper]

I think pear is my favourite wood to carve out of what I have tried so far. It's a bit like a very firm cheddar- there are softer woods to carve like willow and birch, but I find they are easy to mess up for the same reasons. Where as ash on the other hand is hard graft on the hands and your nice sharp tools.

I tried to be a bit more Scandinavian in style with this one. I'm not sure about the underneath of the back of the spoon- it's a bit sharp for me but I like the shallow bowl and flat handle, it's comfy to use. My last pear spoon was carved with the bowl carved into the bark side- this one was toward the pith instead, so rather than having rings in the bowl it's created a really nice zigzag that I wasn't expecting. I've got a billet of pear ready that is radially cut too, which should make stripes in the bowl, that's the plan anyway.

View attachment 72457View attachment 72459View attachment 72460View attachment 72461View attachment 72462

Really like the look of the wood you used and great job on the spoon