Making spoons

[Harlan Barnhart]

I cut some fresh cherry from family land to try my hand at spoon carving.
Here are the tools and a chunk of cherry.
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This is the best work holding I could improvise. It sort of worked.
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I found it worked best to rough out the handle to square"ish" first to make clamping easier.
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Making the cut to define the bowl/handle portions.
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Prying off the waste to define the top of the "bowl".
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Rounding the bowl.
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[Harlan Barnhart]

At this point I switch to roughing out the handle
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A shave works fantastic in green wood.
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Back to the bowl. I "cheated" and wasted out most of it with a forstner.
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Cleaning up inside the bowl with a small carving gouge.
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Shaping the back of the bowl. I found it works best to get the inside where you want it first, then thin the walls by taking material off the outside/back.
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A shallow sweep gouge works well for negotiating the area between the handle and bowl.
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[Harlan Barnhart]

A little more trimming the outside.
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Semi- finished. I plan to let it dry out and then work for a final shaping and final finish. It went faster than I thought. This took about an hour. This is my sixth spoon. Five are keepers, the first was a bust.
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[Jim Koepke]

Thanks for sharing this Harlan.

My attempts a spoon making has been fun. Sold a few at the farmers market.

Plan to make more in the future.

jtk

[Karl Andersson]

Harlan,
thanks for taking the time to photograph the process - the spoon looks very nicely proportioned.

Green wood is so much easier to work; I'll have to plan more of it into my projects. I haven't tried cherry, but the maple I used in the spoons I posted about last week went from very easy carving when wet to extremely hard after drying for a week. I left about 1/4 inch of waste all around so they would dry more evenly (that was my theory at least), but I think next time I'll get it a lot closer to final dimesions like you're showing.

hopefully we'll see a few more "tools in use" or project threads here in neanderville - they give my brain a rest from pondering the effects of microscopic silica crystals on tool steel...

later,
Karl

[John Powers]

You may not "need" the Del Stubbs hooked knife but for the bowl I think it's what a lot of people use. Mine works great on green cherry. Theres a waiting period.

[Harlan Barnhart]

I haven't tried cherry, but the maple I used in the spoons I posted about last week went from very easy carving when wet to extremely hard after drying for a week.
Karl
I made seven spoons and the wood was getting harder with each one. The last was carved when the wood was five days off the tree. Its not a project you can leave lying around.

[Harlan Barnhart]

Here are the whole lot. This a quick and rewarding project. Highly recommended.
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[Jim Underwood]

Thanks for the enjoyable mini-tutorial. Those are great spoons. Pardon my saying so, but I'd call several of these ladles rather than spoons.

What will you finish them with?

[Harlan Barnhart]

Thanks for the kind words Jim. For a finish I plan to rub on some butcher block oil I have sitting around.

[Michael Ray Smith]

Working with green wood to actually make something is a foreign concept to me -- my entire experience would be idle whittling. How long do you let the spoons (or ladles) dry before applying the butcher block oil? Is cracking a problem as they dry?

[John Powers]

Since I got that hooked knife I've been raiding the woodpile. Wild cherry and maple. I did two in fresh maple and also cherry. If you smack them together you get a thud. I taped a foam insulation box together and hung a bulb inside. Poked in a meat thermometer. Over a few days they'll go from a thud to a higher pitched sound. I rubbed in oil over a few days. a 50W bulb will get pretty hot so you can open the lid a bit. The spoons dried ok but I turned a pestle out of cherry and had to pull it out when hairline cracks started to appear in the end grain of the buisness end. I hate advice that entails a major project. That foam board box took about an hour with just a utility knife and duct tape.

[Harlan Barnhart]

Working with green wood to actually make something is a foreign concept to me -- my entire experience would be idle whittling. How long do you let the spoons (or ladles) dry before applying the butcher block oil? Is cracking a problem as they dry?
Yes, cracking is a problem, and sometimes things move around. Like this.
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I carved the one on the left with edge of the spoon right in the pith causing a split as it dried out. The one on the right has the pith lower in the bowl which seems a better option.



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This one had a knot in the handle causing it bend the wrong way as it dried out. Its still usable but not quite as nice as it was originally. These have been sitting for a little more than a week since being carved and they feel quite dry.

[Karl Andersson]

Michael,
in the method I used, the wood is from a crooked branch that has been split in half along the grain - you get two blanks from this- a top and bottom -and the actual center of the pith is whittled off, so splitting is not as likely as when you leave the center of the pith in the spoon. The wood moves a little sometimes, like Harlan's did with the knot, but by carving the wet blanks along the grain lines as much as possible, they tend to stay the way they were carved. I kept the split blanks wet by closing them in a plastic shopping bag until they could be rough shaped (see the first picture in my December post), then allowed them to air dry in an unheated shed for a week. At that point, the total thickness was about 3/4-1 inch, and they were relatively damp when I carved again down to about 1/16th over final dimension. I then let them dry again indoors for a week - after which the maple was extremely hard and completely dry. Total movement (some bowl lips warped towards the bark side) was only 1/16th to 1/8th inch and didn't distort the shape. of course, the style I was making is intended to look more shapely and "natural", curved handles and odd-shaped bowls are expected
Karl