New Wood for my Collection: Black Locust

I've avoided black locust wood so far. It is nice but it contains slightly poisonous toxalbumins. Luckily, wikipedia told me that toxalbumins are in fact proteins, so they break down with heat treatment. So I carved a spoon, boiled it half an hour, sanded it and finally dried it in the oven.

I made a decorative pebble from black locust several years ago and I remember it was very difficult to sand. There are still some scratches and uneven places on it. This time it was still difficult but I can sand much better, so the spoon is nice and smooth. (You can click on the images to enlarge them and see the difference.)

Maple and Peach

Lately I've finished two new spoons. One is from my stock of beautiful peach wood (there aren't many pieces left).

The second spoon is from a maple crook that gives it an interesting grain pattern.

Maple and Poplar

I have two new spoons, the first one is from bent maple branch.

The second one is from poplar wood I found last year after a windstorm. Grey poplar is a hybrid between white poplar and common aspen. It has the softest wood I have ever carved and the finished spoon is light as a feather. The heartwood has a nice color and it had a weak fruity smell, while the sapwood is almost white and it smelt like rancid oil. Fortunately the smell disappeared after drying.

I wanted to carve and paint a decoration like Maryanne McGinn does but it did not go very well, the pigments ran too much in the soft wood. Just so that you know that things don't always work out the way I intend.

Svor

Trees are often connected through their root systems. Even when such tree is cut down, it can survive for a long time and try to close the wound. The inside of the stump would start to rot, but the outer layer would still grow very slowly. Such wood is extremely dense and it has nice grain pattern. It is called "svor" in Slovak and it can be found on beech and fir stumps. Fir svor was used for making especially tough and beautiful shepherd's cups.

I managed to find a few stumps like that but they are huge and not suitable for cups. I took just one half-stump that did not have much living wood left. I carved a spoon from it as an experiment.

Harvesting a svor is not easy. You have to dig out the stump and cut the roots in suitable places. So you have to deal with ants, centipedes, grubs and everything else that may live in a half-rotten stump. If you choose a bad season like me, you will also be attacked by mosquitos.

If you succeed, after peeling the bark you gain something like this (the stump was really almost gone and even the roots were hollow):

Then you have to remove all the dead wood. The rest is an extremely durable wood that should last many years of hard use. You can decide for yourself if it is worth the trouble.

FAQs about Sanding

1) Will I have splinters stuck in my tongue if I use a wooden spoon?

When I say "wood", many people imagine rough sawn planks bristling with splinters:

 

However, the surface depends on the used tools. A saw leaves such splinters because every tooth cuts and tears the wood fibers. But spoons are not carved with a saw! If you have suitable wood, a sharp knife and some skill, the surface of the spoon can be smoother than a smartphone display and there will be no splinters at all. The spoon can be additionally sanded and polished, but that's just for surface finishing, not for removing splinters. 

For example, these spoons are not sanded:

 

2) To sand or not to sand?

Nowadays it seems to be cool and trendy not to use any sandpaper. It kinda makes sense - if someone carves spoons for sale, he wants to make them as fast as possible and skip all the unnecessary steps. Proper sanding and polishing takes hours and if you skip it, you may save as much as one third of crafting time. And of course such craftsman will tell the customers that this is the best way to carve spoons. Besides, many people consider it an ultimate proof of skills if you can carve spoons that don't need to be sanded.

Sanding has a bad reputation because it is often used for hiding someone's carving mistakes. But let's face it - an ugly spoon will remain ugly no matter how much sandpaper you waste on it.

So if someone tries to convince you that sandpaper is ultimate evil, don't take that too seriously. It is just a matter of personal preference. Some people love faceted texture of knife cuts while others prefer uniform polished surface. I usually prefer sanded spoons because they are easier to wash. But I prefer unsanded spoons when:

• the wood itself does not polish well (like cherry, basswood)
• the wood is pale and without grain patterns (then the spoon is more interesting with faceted surface) 

3) What kind of sandpaper should I use?

Sandpaper is produced in various grit sizes, around 15-2000. The number indicates the amount of the abrasive material that can fit through a square inch filter, so larger number means that the grains are smaller and the grit is finer.

Some internet manuals will tell you that you must sand the spoon with grits 80, 120, 240, 360, 400, 600, 1000, 2000 and you can't skip any of them. But that rule is not universal. It depends on the wood and also on the quality of the sandpaper itself. 

For example, I seldom use grit 80 because it is too coarse for my taste and it leaves deep, ugly scratches. If the wood is quite soft (like willow), then I skip the 120 as well. I don't use my 240 grit sandpaper because it wears out very quickly (but maybe I just happened to buy some low-quality brand). I also skip 400 because it is too similar to 360, so the effort does not pay off. So I sand harder woods with 120, 360, 600 and then polish with 2000. For softer woods I use only 360, 600 and 2000. I recommend buying more different grits and brands in the beginning and to test what works best for you.

4) How to do it right?

I'm sure there are many good ways but this is what works for me.

Cut a strip 6-8cm wide (use some old scissors because the blades will get scratched by the coarser grits). Then fold the strip into a flat roll 6-8cm long and 1-2cm wide. This can be used to sand the outer walls. The folded paper is tough, it does not crumple under the fingers, but it is flexible enough to adjust to the spoon curves. When the outer layer wears out, you can cut it off and reveal the next layer.

 

When you move on to the next grit, make sure to remove any scratches that remained from the previous grit. When it's hard to tell if the scratches are old or new, you can just change the direction of the sanding.

After grit 600 the spoon will look and feel smooth but you are not there yet. Wash the spoon and let it dry. The fibers torn by the sandpaper will rise, the spoon will feel hairy and it must be re-sanded with grit 600. This step must be repeated until the spoon is smooth enough even after washing. The number of iterations depends on the wood. For example, lilac and hornbeam are smooth after two iterations while cherry is not good enough even after 10 of them (that's why I recommend not to sand cherry, it's just too much trouble).

Finally polish the spoon with grit 2000 and it can be finished with oil.

5) But how do I sand the inside of the bowl?

Cut a strip of sandpaper as wide as your index finger. You can fix it to your finger with tape or just hold it in place with other fingers. Then you can sand with your fingertip. You may have to use coarser grit in the beginning because sanding the inside is a little harder. The sandpaper strips also wear out quite quickly this way because they crumple a lot.

 

6) How can I tell if the spoon is sanded well?

Sanding might seem easy, but it also needs some practice. There are several common mistakes:

- visible scratches on the finished spoon (someone was lazy to remove them :D)  

 

 

- matt patches on the finished surface (these should have been straightened out with the coarsest sandpaper)

 

 

- sporadic grooves inside the bowl (those are some unfortunate cuts with a spoon knife, they are almost impossible to sand off)

 

Spoon from a Walnut Branch

I've been a bit lazy to carve lately, I only made this spoon from a walnut branch. It is not sanded, just polished with a pebble.

If you want to know how to do it: first you must find a perfectly smooth stone because every tiny crack would leave scratches on the wood. Then simply polish the surface of the spoon. It will soften the edges and the traces of your knife cuts. But the cuts will be still visible to some extent, so the spoon must be carved nicely enough in the first place :)

New Wood for my Collection: Pear

I have a new spoon from pear wood. It is similar to apple wood, it's very hard and can be polished nicely.

And this is a pebble from exotic wood known as "angelim pedra". It has very nice patterns and it smells like something between beans and dried fruits :)