Tooling Up for Carving Spoons & Pipes -- Tool Recommendations?

[adam breuer]

One of my good friends, and one of the most skilled woodworkers I have ever met, is now battling cancer (and winning). He carves spoons and pipes in his spare time. He's an old timer who does not use the internet and can produce truly beautiful work with only a few mediocre tools. I'm putting together a kit of tools to send him as a pick-me-up.

I would love to hear your recommendations for tools to include in the kit. It currently consists only of a bunch of vintage Buck chisels and gouges (from the good years) that I purchased from another member.

I'm particularly interested in a spoke shave (set?) or something similar, scrapers, and a vise suited to spoons. Vintage and new tools are both fine. If anyone has a good source for spoon/pipe/carving blanks, I would love to hear that, too.

Things I'm currently considering are LV contour planes or a Stanley #52 or Kunz spokeshave. However, I spend most of my workshop time playing with 1ton+ machines, so I defer to your judgment here.

[robert dankert]

A rasp for the pipes once the shape is roughed out. Don't know how he drills his pipes, but alignment is critical. You can get briar blanks pre-drilled.

[Darrell LaRue]

For spoon carving I use a small hatchet for roughing out the blanks, then a Mora knife for the outside work, followed by a hook knife for the inside of the bowl.

Most any comfortable, sharp knife is fine for the majority of the work. I like the Frosts like Lee Valley sells. Let me look it up. Oh. Wow, only the wee ones are left :( http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=31077&cat=1,130,43332,43393

For a hook knife I like the one I got from Dell Stubbs at Pinewood Forge. It comes super sharp and works great. You can't go wrong with Ben Orford's hook knife either.

That's all I use for spoons. You can follow up with a scraper or sandpaper, but I just carve them and put them to work.

Darrell
who carved another spoon at camp on the weekend.
by the time the Scouts started looking for a spoon to stir dinner with, I was done.

[Paul Sidener]

I only carve spoons, so I will comment on that. The only tools I use are a carving axe, sloyd knife and a hook knife and #1 & #2 open sweep knives from Pinewood Forge. As for blanks, I go out to the woods and cut green wood. You can use a gouge, I never saw a reason too. I don't use a spoke shave for spoons, I guess you could. I suppose you could cut blanks on a band saw, if you wanted too. Don't need a vise either. If you wanted to you could use a draw knife and a shaving horse. Spoons are simple, you just need a few basic tools.

http://www.pinewoodforge.com/catalog.html

[Jim Koepke]

One of my good friends, and one of the most skilled woodworkers I have ever met, is now battling cancer (and winning). He carves spoons and pipes in his spare time. He's an old timer who does not use the internet and can produce truly beautiful work with only a few mediocre tools. I'm putting together a kit of tools to send him as a pick-me-up.

I would love to hear your recommendations for tools to include in the kit. It currently consists only of a bunch of vintage Buck chisels and gouges (from the good years) that I purchased from another member.

I'm particularly interested in a spoke shave (set?) or something similar, scrapers, and a vise suited to spoons. Vintage and new tools are both fine. If anyone has a good source for spoon/pipe/carving blanks, I would love to hear that, too.

Things I'm currently considering are LB contour planes or a Stanley #52 or Kunz spokeshave. However, I spend most of my workshop time playing with 1ton+ machines, so I defer to your judgment here.

That is a wonderful gesture toward a friend.

Do you know that he actually would like an addition to the tools he is familiar with using?

The Stanley spokeshave might be nice. In my opinion (& it may not just be mine alone) the Kunz should be avoided.

If he drills his own pipe bowls he might like a spoon bit or two.

http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=57713&cat=1,180,42337

If he does green wood spoon carving, there isn't as much use for spokeshaves, gouges or chisels. Maybe he would like some small detail carving knives if he likes to decorate his spoons.

jtk