Spoonylicious! – How to make a spoon

Ever wondered where to start with making your own wooden spoon? JP show’s us how.

I managed to grab my self a couple of bits of spoon fodder this weekend, Ash, willow but in particular a piece of hawthorn, hawthorn is a very wet and closed grained wood when cut, fantastic for carving with, heres what i did with it.
First I split the wood using an axe (no pics of that sorry) then I drew out a spoon on the blank and cut four stop cuts into it prior to carving, stop cuts STOP you cutting through the piece you are carving and splitting through into other more delicate parts of your carving,

I then removed the wood creating a spoon shape, when carving a spoon carve it in 2 dimensions draw it out in one plane and carve it out keep looking at it as you carve and remove small amounts until you are happy with the results. Stay outside the lines you have created this will give you a small margin of error.

Once I had carved the top profile I then drew the side profile on following the curve of the wood cutting stop cuts as I went.

I then continued to remove the wood on this plane to create the shape to the spoon, as you carve keep looking at your piece and where you think it needs work carve it a little more.

You are then left with the roughed out spoon, notice how I have left the wood on the end of the handle so it gives you something to hold whilst carving. As you carve constantly look at and hold and feel what you are doing, after all this is something you are going to use it must be comfortable to hold and pleasing to YOUR eye as you have created it and if you have created it then it is a thing of beauty to you as well as being functional

Oh then have a bru (this is not mandatory while carving)

Then I look at the spoon from the end seeing if it is flat along the first plane I carved, if not I remove wood form the top face of the spoon so it is flat(ish) on the uppermost surface.

I then remove the piece I was using to hold the spoon as I am now carving in more detail

Then I continue to whittle and carve till I have the basic spoon shape, I find I go into a state of meditation it seems to relax me immensely so I stop at this point, phone a friend and have another bru.

At this point I carve the bowl using a crook/spoon knife.

As I carve the bowl of the spoon I continuously try it in my mouth, after all you will be eating with it and there is nothing like a custom made spoon to fit your gob!

You will now have the spoon in the rough, remember this is a practice makes perfect project as you carve your wood will split where you don’t want it to, you will over cut into the next bit you are carving ect as you do this you will gain experience so when it does occur you will know how to rectify your mistake, play around with your cuts and techniques, its hard enough putting this thread together without showing this!! You can use wood from your local wood yard or hard wood specialist so just because you cant get a piece from a woodland doesn’t mean you cant create a lovely spoon, as this hawthorn wood is so wet I will leave it indoors for 3/5 days to dry until raising the grain and sanding and oiling.

Needs a few more coats of oil but you get the idea

I hope you enjoy looking at this as much as i enjoyed doing it.

JP

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