Stock of Wood

I realised that I've hoarded up a large stock of wood in my cellar, so I should probably do something interesting with it. I selected a piece of plumwood.

This is the finished spoon after oiling, together with an older spoon from the same tree. All the pink and beige hues will eventually turn to dark brown... but that doesn't look bad either.

Tool Shelf

Until recently all of my carving tools have been stored like this:

Then I bought a few planks and some screws and I created this:

Everything is well-arranged for now and I will add some improvements later...

New Pebbles

My collection of wooden pebbles has some new species of wood...

The first pebble is from a very old forsythia bush. Forsythia has a thick pith inside every branch and that's why this pebble has a hole in the middle.
I have always thought that forsythia (called "golden rain" in Slovak) is poisonous, but it is not. The name "golden rain" is also used for laburnum tree which is poisonous and people just mix it up.

The second pebble is from holm oak. It is not oiled, so the variable wood patterns can be seen better.

This is an offcut from almond wood with extra beautiful colors.

The last two pebbles are replacements for other two that I gave away. The upper one is from plum wood and the lower one from zebrawood. It is not sanded/polished because zebrawood with big open pores looks better that way.

Slide

I carved a guitar slide before Christmas. It was for my cousin Marian, who learns to play dobro (resonator guitar). This is the finished slide, I made just the wooden part:

Although I've never seen a guitar slide and I carved it only according to a picture from the internet, it seems to work just as it should. And it makes me quite proud.

Holm Oak

At last I've finished a spoon from holm oak that I mentioned in this post.

Compared to english oak, this wood is much harder, less porous and very difficult to split. Now I understand why it is used for axe handles. I had to hew it for a long time before it condescended to crack a little...
This wood has a very nice pattern from short rays and it works a bit like a holographic print: the pattern depends on the viewing angle. I wanted to make a picture of it, but the holographic effect almost disappeared after oiling because all parts of the pattern became more visible. But you can see it a little if you compare the two pictures here and focus on the ellipse pattern inside the bowl.

The design is inspired by Yoav Elkayam, who makes just the kind of spoons I like.

Why Doesn't Anyone Use Softwood?

Long ago I've read a few on-line manuals how to carve spoons. All of them agree on this: "Never use softwoods! They are too soft, they crack easily and your food will taste like resin!"
But then my colleague brought me a piece of larch and I carved a spoon from it because I'm a deep-dyed optimist.

Now I can say from my own experience that: 

• This wood is not too soft for carving. Some people carve spoons from willow, which is even softer.
• Does it crack? Maybe. I'll find out later.
• The resinous smell is very weak after drying and the taste is neutral.
• And besides (who would say that?) it can be easily sanded without leaving a fuzzy surface after washing.

Look at those colors! And the grain pattern! The best thing about it is that larch will acquire even better color in the future.

Treacherous Almond Wood

I thought I've already experienced all the dirty tricks that wood can prepare for me. I saw knots, irregular and wavy grain, soft punky wood and woodworm holes. But almond prepared a big surprise for me. Note the small hole in the upper part...

At first I thought it was a pulp or some rotten wood, later it seemed like a hole bitten by some mysterious insects. Anyway, the hole branched and it went diagonally to the other side of the log (although not completely, there was about 1cm layer of wood on the surface to mask the hole). No matter how I would place the spoon, the hole would go right through the middle...

Fortunatelly, the other part of the log had only some shallow holes, so I could carve a spoon in the end...

This wood is very similar to apple, it is just as hard and dense. The heartwood has beautiful colors from yellow to brown and red and it is obviously harder than the outer sapwood. It can also be polished very nicely. I expected that almond wood would smell like almonds, but it has no characteristic smell. 
So everything ended well and I learned an important thing: if you see a hole in the wood, always make sure how deep it is before you start carving. Otherwise you can be very surprised!