Twisted spoons

[SOAR]

Heres a couple of pics of some large spoons that I have recently made, there seemed to be theme that the wood dictated to me as I made them, a twisted handle theme. I originaly wanted straight handles, the wood had other ideas and as I carved the blade of my knife seemed to follow the curves that the wood produced. It was strange, I just let the wood guide me and here are the results. They make excellent serving spoons for right handed folk, not very good for leftys though as my wife found out, she felt like she had no control over the spoon.

The first one is made of London plane

The second is made from Birch

Hope you like them.

Simon.

 

[mace242]

Nice ones. I do like the rustic look. Encouraged me to get making at the weekend.

 

[spamel]

I made one a few weeks back, but I think I might bang a few more out. Have you tried chop sticks? Simple yet fun!

 

[Hoodoo]

Love 'em! Those are beauties! Fine work.

 

[British Red]

Like em both - but the birch one is the nicer of the two!

So your wife can't get more mashed spuds?

Shame

Red

 

[SOAR]

Like em both - but the birch one is the nicer of the two!

So your wife can't get more mashed spuds?

Shame

Red

Cheers Red I like the Birch one, the London Plane one is as tough as old boots very stringy wood like oak.

 

[shep]

Beautiful stuff. For me the way the wood dictates your carving then warps as it cures is what makes green wood work so special. I'm still trying to get it right to make the most of this.

 

[SOAR]

It sure is strange when you use a straight piece of wood only to carve ito it and the wood tells you otherwise, both pieces were straight but still twisted and turned as I carved them.
The magic of wood eehh.

Simon.

 

[JonnyP]

Nice work Simon, I love bendy wood....

 

[SOAR]

Cheers Jon.

Simon.

 

[brancho]

like the spoons
I am very interested in how the London plane carved.

 

[SOAR]

The London Plane was very tough wood and was very stringy, alot like oak.

 

[weaver]

It take's a real craftsman to recognize the life in the wood. You did a great job there on both spoons.

I was carving one and it developed a "Z" in the center of the handle, I carved right round it as it wanted and the whole spoon came to life. S0rry, I don't have a picture. There was a young girl watching me carve so I asked her mother if it was OK to give it to her. She walked away with the biggest smile I have ever seen.

 

[fishfish]

nice work mate! never heard of london plane before.

 

[spamel]

The good thing with a bendy spoon is that if the bend is right, you can keep the spoon in your back pocket and it is really comfortable. It also won't snap if it is curved as it won't have rpessure applied to one single point when you sit down on it. All my spoons have twisted in some way or another, but who cares about uniformity? I guess the only way around it is to carve seasoned wood. That seems like a bit too much hard work to me though!

 

[spamel]

nice work mate! never heard of london plane before.

You may have seen it and never knew quite what it was. As I recall, the bark looks like DPM material, it's really wierd, and it has little round spikey balls hanging off of the branches, very distinctive. They seem to crop up in urban areas a lot.

 

[Porcupine]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platanus

wikipedia for the win


the reason you see it a lot in urban environments is it handles pollution a lot better then most other trees.