Wooden spoons

Wooden spoons making spoons and learning

It's really three-dimensional doodling and began with grand-daughters and fairies. But that's another story. This is an unfinished record of experimenting and learning in greenwood carving and spoon making. It has been intriguing to note how, in developing new ideas and skills, I have just fallen in to the stereotypical boys learning style. Just do it, use the tools, learn from mistakes, do it again. No planning, drawing, thinking, just working directly with wood and sharp tools.

When I started 18 months ago I knew nothing of wooden spoon making, neither the products, process or community. It has been an interesting, gradual and rewarding progression. This site is just used as a personal record to document the journey. P.S. Also interested in finding a use for this Adobe app.

The point is, when I was an art teacher and adviser this was not the creative process we taught. That was about systematic learning, planning, sketching, mastering skills, developing ideas, then making outcomes. Now left to my own devices - Nah, just get a stick and start.

I guess the reason I find this process so interesting is that, when I started playing I knew nothing of the craft of spoon making. I began with a completely blank slate- like a typical year 7. It has been interesting to learn a whole new craft from scratch, noting the learning process on the way. This is just a personal 'making' journal, tracking progress from a standing start, carving occasional small 'fairy' spoons with an xacto craft knife and sandpaper (for a granddaughter) to a more serious interest in professional craft practices.

An early miniature spoon. These started as 'fairy' spoons for Grandaughters. It is Holly. This cuts easily and takes a soft shine. It is quite white in colour but fades or stains to grey. The process was just to start and follow the form down the handle. The tools were ordinary craft knives and sand paper.

Beech

This was a rose twig with a soft core. Having cut the spiral it was interesting to scrape out the core. Happy discovery, but left unfinished.

A piece pruned from an old gnarled rose from the garden. The shape was determined by the branch.

A christmas fork (for eating turkish delight ) Carved then burnt, rubbed back and oiled with food grade oil and wax scented with orange - smells of toasted hazel nuts and oranges.

burnt wood

Burnt, rubbed back with steel wool and oiled with raw linseed oil.

Mahonia from the garden

These small spoon bowls have so far been made using a rotary drill with a round grinding burr. OK for small spoons but tends to overheat and scorch the wood. Small craft gouges are also used but these are uncertain tools when the work is held in the hand rather than in a vice.

Holly with gold bowl

old piece of honeysuckle

flame blackened alder and (imitation) gold leaf

Holly. Experimenting with scroll at the base to give stability or perhaps to allow them to be displayed by hanging. Starting to explore the idea of displaying the spoons - best to stand naturally rather than falling on their side. So that’s an early discovery, spoons should usually be naturally balanced when placed on a flat surface - it’s obvious if you look at ordinary spoons but I needed to learn it as I played.

Oak

Crab Apple, carved immediately after cutting, colour yet to develop.

These small spoons show that I have still not got a real sense of the profile of a spoon with a natural crank relating the bowl to the handle. This relates to the way a spoon is used. I wasn’t that interested in the functionality of fairy spoons.

Black Maple

I had been happy carving and experimenting on my own so far. However I am starting to realise my limitations. So I booked into a course on green wood carving run by Marten Damen. This provided real skills in using the Mora carving knives I had bought, and taught me how to sharpen them. It also opened up the door to real craftsmen, through a specialist book on spoon making that Marten had been involved with and which I bought. Marten also provided advice about where to get professional tools.

Phase one 'playing' is over. Phase two 'developing skills and knowledge' begins. The learning point is that I had reached a point in my development where I recognised that I needed further input to improve. I had a better idea of what I wanted to achieve and needed to learn from others, including, experts, books and YouTube. I have already begun to buy tools. Such as needle files and rifflers to support the carving.

Developing collection of knives and rifflers. Rather pleased with the homemade sheath for the hook knife.

The first bigger spoon and the first time I used a pencil. But beginning to realise that just using whole stick was going to continue to present a formal design problem with the weaker central pith. Solutions to date are to spiral around the central column. But there is an inherent problem emerging in that the handle is too dominant and the bowl is visually weak.

Flame blackened maple

Silver Birch

Holly

Maple

Holly

But beginning to realise that using whole round stick was going to continue to present the design problem of the weaker centre pith. I guess a breakthrough was the realisation that proper spoon makers split the wood with an axe and used sections of larger logs.

Reached a point where I needed more research to move the process on.

Another craftsman's book

Another Book discovered on Amazon changed direction again. This time exploring the skills required to make functional spoons. The book was liberating because it gave permission to use a variety of techniques, including power tools (dremel). It also described the disciplines of making functional spoons. The learning pattern seems to be established now. Work directly and resolve issues, until you can't, then look for external references. It's how children learn to draw.

Maple

Cream tea spoons

Spoon jar. About now I discovered the wonderful spoons on Pinterest.

working through variations on a theme

maple, eucalyptus and cherry

maple, cherry

Apple

Eucalyptus

From a small chip of cherry

Maple ladle

roughed out with an axe.

Also used a course rasp

sanded and oiled

Wood from quince tree (in my garden)

A scoop from a small wedge of cherry just lying around.

Branch from a very old apple tree. I gave it to a teacher I was working with in Kazakhstan.

Apple wood the slender shape arose because I had to keep cutting to get rid of the wood worms which had taken up residence.

Two more spoons from the same old apple tree from my mother's garden.

From a firewood log - silver birch.

Starting to deliberately develop the skills to cut and control the shape and refine the edges. No longer just doodling and following the shape as it emerges in the hand.

A quick spoon from a thin stick.

An old piece of mahogany I think. The finish is 'off the knife'. Then just oiled. This is the first time I have left it like this. It cuts the making time by almost 50% in my case. I spend a lot of time smoothing and polishing. This seems to have real integrity.

Starting to design and make spoons for a purpose. This Is for instant coffee. Long handle, flattened end profile and angled bowl.

Trying to design a quick 'Xmas mustard spooon' for my son as we are spending Xmas with them (in Madrid).

Christmas 2016

A new hook knife and carving axe (from Robin Wood). Good quality tools really do make a difference.

A couple of 'Christmas' mustard spoons

Detour

New hook knives meant I had to make some sheaths. This involved learning how to work leather. YouTube and amazon were a great help.

There were not many examples on Pinterest or Instagram, so I had to design them myself - and learn basic leather working such as saddle stitching (from You Tube). The above are prototype number three and seem to work well for the Robin Wood knives.

Having made sheaths for the new Robin Wood hook knives I felt a need to make a sheath for my old Mora hook knife. Again there did not seem many examples and the pattern used for the other knives did not work easily - the curve was too tight and the blade snagged on the leather as it was inserted. Various designs were explored before the final design was settled upon. Having completed the sheath it seemed like a good time to regrind the blade. So I took off the sharply pointed tip and smoothed over the back edge to avoid it catching on the inside of a curve and causing a 'chatter' as it cut.

Three surfaces on this spoon. The bowl is sanded, the top is left rough sawn as found and the rest is left knife cut.

This is just an unfinished, ongoing, personal record of my learning (and spoons). I am surprised at my rejection of the standard linear 'educational' process and intrigued by the way that I have engaged with this new learning. This has been to proceed by trial and error until I came up against a issue which no longer satisfied at which point I looked elsewhere for inspiration and to the internet and books for serious research into skills and expertise.

By now, however, I am learning from the greenwood and spoon carving community using You Tube, Instagram, Blogs and Pinterest. It is a long way from fairy spoons with a Stanley knife. At some stage I may write more about this, for now I'll just record what I make.

Dan China (www.danchina.net)

Time passes

I have been busy moving house and settling in so I have not made a spoon for about 18 months. This is picking up where I left off. It seems that I am interested in making spoons which could be used now. This might be a tasting spoon or a coffee scoop.

Pear wood.

Created By

Dan China

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Wooden spoons making spoons and learning

Time passes

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