Christmas Spoon from Beech

I salvaged a beech log from a pile of firewood in the summer and I used it to carve this spoon.

I started to imitate a spoon from this gallery, but I slightly changed everything - the handle is a little wider, the bowl is more narrow, the wood pattern is totally different - but some similarity still remained.

The spoon is very nicely curved from the side.

After soaking the spoon in oil, a dark pattern appeared on the reverse side - it seems that the oil was absorbed faster in the spiral lines cut on the front side and it soaked through the fibers down to the reverse side. I assume that this pattern won't last very long, though...

Growth Rings

Last time I wrote about radial cut and then I decided to write how the cut would influence the wood pattern on a carved spoon. Let's begin with an ordinary log:

There are different ways to carve a spoon from the highlighted part.

1) Radial cut: the spoon will have a pattern of parallel lines. Examples: 1, 2.

2) Tangential cut (pith above the spoon): this is quite logical choice, especially if you have smaller diameter wood. The outer rim is naturally curved to form a bowl and the inner angled part would form a handle (at least a narrow one). The resulting pattern may vary, depending on the diameter of the log: a spoon from a thicker log is on the left, a spoon from a thinner log on the right side. Examples: 1, 2, 3, 4.

However, if the log had a large diameter (e.g. a trunk of a big tree), the spoon may have an oval pattern. The ovals are crosswise to the spoon. Example: 1.

3) Tangential cut (pith below the spoon): if you have a larger diameter log, it is interesting to cut a spoon upside down. The spoon would have lengthwise oval rings in the bowl. Examples: 1, 2.

Beauty in Simplicity

After a long time I carved a spoon from radially cut peach wood. Radial cut is like when you split a log and you see the growth rings as parallel lines on the split surface. Well, they are not as parallel on this spoon because the wood formed a slight spiral.

 

I used very simple shape, similar to ordinary metal spoons. It is perfectly symetrical, even if it doesn't seem so because of the wavy wood pattern.

Radial cut has its advantages: the spoon is stronger because the fibers are parallel with the handle, and it is more easy to crank the handle because the wood does not peel off so much during cutting (but this is rather hard to explain, you'd have to try it :))

I had a fancy for Viennese nougat all the time because some shavings look just like nougat...

Swedish-Style Birch Spoon

Many experienced carvers don't like sandpaper, some of them almost fanatically. They say that people don't try to carve better when they know that the imperfect tool cuts would be sanded anyway. Moreover, when you sand a spoon and wash it, the wood fibers swell and create a "hairy" texture, which makes the spoon unpleasant to touch. Sanding the spoon so that the grain would not rise is quite difficult and slow. And many people just like the tool cut finish.
Maybe there is something to it - but unsanded spoons seem unfinished to me and I'm not particularly fond of tool cut finish. The harder wood you use, the less fiber raises after sanding and washing - so for example my applewood spoon is smooth like glass, while a spoon from limewood just remained hairy even after the finest sandpaper.
But this time I decided to make an exception and carve a spoon just like I saw on other carvers' blogs - from softer, green wood, without sanding - just to see how it turns out. The inspiration comes from
this blog.

Birch wood surprised me in several aspects: it gains a reddish hue when exposed to the air, and after drying it smells a bit like fried oil. It does not look porous, but when I dipped the finished spoon into walnut oil, it released lots of tiny bubbles and the wood absorbed so much oil that the thinnest parts became a bit translucent...

The spoon looks quite fine without sanding...

... but I'm not content with the chip carving decoration. I have to work on it a little more...

Peach Cooking Spoon

There's a lot of information about wood on the internet, however, peach wood is almost unknown. The only information I found is that it can be used for smoking meat. Other fruitwoods like apple, plum and cherry are often used for carving, though.
When I noticed an interesting brown color on a broken peach tree, I decided to try the wood for carving nevertheless.

The wood is medium hard and it has a very interesting smell, a bit like cherries and a bit like lapacho tea.

I used my new axe to level the twisted wood and to produce this spoon blank (yes, I need more practice, but it's much better and faster than it used to be).

The finished spoon has darker and lighter strips and also a nice texture. I plan to make an eating spoon as well and test if the wood is as good as plum or cherry for carving.

A New Axe!

I have always admired how precisely other spoon carvers can make their spoon blanks using only an axe. After a few not very successful attempts I realised that the problem is not in myself, but in my axe - so I ordered a new one :)

This axe can be used for felling trees and splitting logs, but it is particularly useful for carving. It can be held just behind the head for more precise cuts and it is so sharp that it can be used as a knife. If you have never cut your finger by moving it across an axe blade... well, it's possible.

 I learned that a good axe can save lots of time and work when carving spoons... OK, enough advertisement for now, you'll see the results in the next posts...

Lemon-Scented Wood

The wood database says that lilac wood often has reddish or lavender color streaks throughout the heartwood. I acquired a few lilac logs in spring, but I was not very lucky - the wood is just ordinary brown and white.

Lilac trunks are not very wide, often rot from the inside out and often crack while drying. So why to waste your time with such a wood? Especially if it has no lavender streaks at all?
I can say that it is an excellent wood nevertheless. It is hard, but with even texture, nice pattern and gloss. And it smells very nice. Freshly cut logs had a strong lemon oil scent and after drying the smell resembles lemon soap.

The log I selected was naturally curved to create a spoon shape. When it started to crack, I sealed both ends with wax and let it dry slowly for about half a year.

I read that hard wood should be dried one year for each centimeter of thickness. But half a year was quite enough for this spoon blank. The wood stopped cracking and looked dry afterwards.

I tried to imitate this spoon, also carved from lilac.

The following picture shows the natural luster on the knife cuts. The smoothness of the wood contributed even more to the "soapy" impression.

There are two thin reddish lines around the pith - the only exotic colors present in this piece of wood :D It's also noteworthy that the boundary between heartwood and sapwood does not follow the growth rings.

Here is the spoon after sanding...

... and finished, sealed with oil.
Overall, I'm very happy with the result - both with the shape and with the wood structure and pattern.

Spork

My brother asked me to make a spork, or a hybrid of spoon, fork and knife. I decided to carve it from a piece of cherry wood.

It was quite easy thanks to the plastic model - I always knew exactly which piece of wood should be cut off.

At first I planned to leave it with knife finish, so I carved it very smoothly.

 

In the end I decided to sand it to make it even more similar to its plastic model.

 

I even added the manufacturer logo. I made it with kolrosing and I used cocoa powder which leaves very dark, almost black color.

Charming Cherry

The only spoon I bought so far is from craft market in Kezmarok and it's made from cherry wood.

At first I thought it was dyed; wood can't have such color naturally, right? Only much later I learned that it can.

I ran out of my favorite plumwood supplies, so I searched a pile of wood in our garden to find something usable. I found an old trunk and when I cut it into logs, a nice pink wood showed up. No one could remember where the trunk came from, but we'd cut an old cherry tree a few years ago, so this was probably it.

I wanted to carve another spoon and I made a spoon blank with axe, saw and chisel. But later I found an insect hole just where the bottom of the spoon bowl should be. And it was not the only dirty trick that this piece of wood prepared for me: there were hidden knots and a few cracks as well. So I carved a cooking spoon instead to avoid them.

Cherry wood is softer than apple or plum wood. It made the carving easier, so I carved the basic shape at one sitting. The inspiration came from a few cooking spoons from this article.

Interesting pattern and colors showed up after sealing, almost the same as on the spoon I bought before.

Wooden Pebbles (or What to Do with Cut-offs and Poisonous Wood)

I acquired a few black locust logs, forgotten in the forest after sawing. But black locust wood is slightly poisonous, can irritate the skin and so it isn't suitable for spoons. What else can be carved from such wood, that would show the grain nicely, but have a simple shape? Pebbles, of course!

Black locust wood reminds me of fiberglass: it contains hard, almost translucent fibers arranged in layers. At first it was greenish, but the color later changed to yellow and brown.

This pebble is from a walnut cut-off (left from this spoon). It is too roundy, so I could not carve it in usual way, it kept slipping off my fingers. So I used Dremel and sanding bands instead of a knife.

This is (probably) zebrawood. When I ordered olive wood, I received this cut-off as a gift, but it was too small for a spoon. The wood has an unusual plywood-like smell and very big pores.

The last pebble so far is from plumwood (both heartwood and sapwood are visible).

Tatting Shuttle

A friend of mine asked me if I could carve a tatting shuttle. Basically, a tatting shuttle is a flat, pointy piece of wood that holds some thread and allows to make knots and loops to produce a lace (at least that's my amateur point of view, I never tried it :D ).
I found a few nice pictures on the internet, e.g. here, and I started carving.

I used a piece of old cherry wood I found in the garden. But the result got out of control somehow. My friend said that the shuttle is too nice for tatting and she will wear it as a jewel...

I didn't have any drill to make the holes, so I dug them with reamer/punch on swiss army knife (that is the small pointy thing, usually next to a corkscrew). Most people never use it, but I find it very useful.

Oak Barrel Aroma

I found OneOak project on the web: a 222 years old oak tree was cut down in Oxfordshire and its wood was given to craftsmen and artists, who created various things ranging from sculptures, beams and furniture to spoons and charcoal. The purpose of the project was to promote the importance of trees and woodland management, and the benefits of using wood.
I also learned that oak wood is not used for spoons very often; it is too porous and contains too much tannin. This page recommends to boil the spoons to remove the tannin, but the spoons could crack during boiling or drying. Tannin has a bitter taste, but it is not poisonous and it even has some healing effects.
Having learned all this, I started to carve. Oak wood splits easily, which helped me to carve faster.

The wood did not taste bitter, but it smelt like vinegar brine from pickled gherkins. After long weighing the pros and cons, I decided not to boil the spoon. I sanded it and finished it with oil. Only then I realized that some small pieces of sandpaper sank into the pores and stayed there. So the resulting spoon is a bit dotted... The wood is quite light and it could be polished to a nice gloss despite the porous structure.

 After sanding, the wood has a natural luster.

Sealed with walnut oil.