Photo by Tiko Giorgadze on Unsplash
And not just because it feels good to do it!
..spoons are to carving what chairs are to furniture. At their best, both are three dimensional, functional sculptures
Robert Howard in Wood Review
Spoon-carving is a learned skill as well as an art. You can spend hours crafting a beautiful work of art decorated with engravings and what-not. Or you might be more practical and want to carve something functional and just get the basics down.
Neither way is better than the other. The importance of spoon carving lies in the practice of it.
Like any craft, if you want to get better at it, you need to practice, practice, practice.
And you still won’t be perfect!
The point is to give the time and commitment the skill deserves. Then you reap the rewards tenfold.
Spoon-carving teaches and improves your knife-skills.
It also helps you build on that all-important virtuous muscle called patience. You need to plan ahead, be strategic and take your time when carving a spoon. If you go into it all blades blazing (sorry) then there’s a chance you might just cut too deep, too much and either break your spoon or ruin what was shaping up to be a beautifully crafted piece of cutlery.
You also have to put in preparation — not only when you have the piece of wood that you plan to cut into, but in selecting the piece of wood you are going to use. And you need to have the right tools to do so:
- A knife
- Baton (or chonky block of wood)
- A saw is usually helpful
- Pen or pencil to trace the shape (don’t underestimate the usefulness of this!)
- And a hook knife (to carve out the bowl)
You also need to have the time to be able to craft it and do it within a couple of weeks at the latest before your wood dries out. If you try to carve on a brittle piece of wood then you have a good chance of cracking your spoon. And it’s just not as enjoyable to carve hardwood!
Finally, its fun, its mindful and you get a cool present at the end — your very own handmade spoon!
I can’t tell you the thrill I get each time I randomly stir something using my big wooden spoon (the first one I ever made) (and yes I am aware how lame that is), or looking at my weird little spoon that I just finished recently. I think it’ll be great for measuring flour or honey with.
If you are keen to get spoon-carving yourself, I recommend you check out a few blogs, videos and courses online. A link to Paul Kirtley’s blog about carving a set of utensils is below:
Carving A Set Of Utensils For A Frost River Utensil Roll – Paul Kirtley
Other than knocking out the occasional small spoon for eating with, I’ve not had much time for carving recently. It’s…
This article includes a great step-by-step:
Carving Spoons – Australian Wood Review
Spoon carving is a widely practised art with a long history. For me, spoons are to carving what chairs are to…
Thanks for reading, see you next time!
