Will my spoon split??

[Andrzej]

I started carving a spoon from a branch of an ash tree which I cut down on Sunday. At the moment it has the basic shape, with probably 1cm of wood extra to be whittled away in each of the dimensions. I came back from the woods on Monday evening. I looked at the spoon yesterday and have discovered a few cracks appearing in the wood.
At the moment the cracks are only in parts of the spoon which will be carved away, but will they spread and ruin the whole piece?

 

[scruff]

sounds like its the wood drying out on you.

plunge it in some tong oil, maybe it will reduce the damage....

....failing that you may have jus carved your first straining spoon

 

[AJB]

"....failing that you may have jus carved your first straining spoon "

luch now on keyboard, thanks for that

 

[scruff]

tee hee!

 

[Eric_Methven]

Sounds like it's drying out a wee bit too fast. A good rub with vegetable oil will help slow down the drying and hopefully you'll get the rest carved out so it can shrink down uniformally without any more checking. You're not doing the carving in a centrally heated house are you? That'll definitely help to crack the wood. Carve it outdoors if possible and keep the spoon blank out doors as well between carving sessions.

Eric

 

[Andrzej]

The splits haven't got any larger and I have now carved more of the spoon when I was in the woods again this weekend, so I think my initial worry is over.
thanks for the help

 

[fastbreak]

The splits haven't got any larger and I have now carved more of the spoon when I was in the woods again this weekend, so I think my initial worry is over.
thanks for the help

The important thing with carving spoons from green wood is to remove as much material as possible in the first session. If you can rough the spoon down to a little less than1cm on the handle and a bit less on the bowl, it won't split. It might warp or bend a bit though, but the nearer to finishing thickness you get in the first session, the less that is likely to happen.

The point is that you are carving wet wood, it has a much higher humidity than the atmosphere (even outside on a wet muggy day) so it is going to dry out. If you get it to an even thickness, preferably less than a centimeter in any dimension, then drying will be relatively even, so it won't split.

If you can't carve that quickly, then dip any exposed end grain in hot wax before you leave it overnight. Wood dries out much more quickly from the ends, where the sap chambers are open, than from the sides, so end cracks are inevitable if the carving isn't very thin. Waxing the ends is an old trick which slows moisture loss from the ends of the wood to about the same rate as the sides.

Good luck and Have fun

Mike