I organized a spoon carving course for a couple of friends. We worked with willow, alder and cherry wood. First we were training the basic knife cuts and then we carved our spoons in 1 day. And here is the result (one more unfinished spoon is missing on the picture):
Finally, I managed to finish the spoon from acacia wood that I mentioned here. I made two other spoons from this wood previously, but those were from an acacia branch which wasn't all that hard. But this was a piece of heartwood, heavy and rock-hard. The spoon has been lying around in various stages of unfinished for more than a year. I'd work on it now and than, only to leave it aside again. Plus, I couldn't decide on the right shape. In the end I somehow managed to finish it.
After sanding, I put the spoon in the oven to dry, but I accidentally left the oven set to 200 degrees Celsius :) Luckily, it didn't harm the spoon, just the orange stripes turned a bit more pink and purple.
I also wanted to try inlaying with brass wire, but I'll get to that another time :)
I have some new spoons from interesting wood: the striped one is American sumac, the light one is dog rose. The second photo shows the spoons when they were unfinished.
I added the dog rose spoon to a set of two matching ones.
I also have some new pieces in my wood stash: right to left some more sumac (from a broken tree near my appartment), russian silverberry (from clearing some self-sown trees), and one white piece of wood I brought back from my vacation, probably prunus lusitanica.
In January I finished the second spoon from cornel wood, which is very dense and tough. The spoon quickly found its way to Oksana, my original sponsor of cornel wood. I still have two smaller pieces left for more little spoons.
Below is the hornbeam spoon next to an unfinished acacia spoon I’ve been working on for a few months now. As soon as I successfully sand it, I will write more about the wood.
