Spoon Carving

[Pwk5017]

I am interested in trying my hand at carving spoons. I love using the hand carved spoons we bought many years ago at a fall festival, but they are cracked and in need of replacing. Knowing how i jumped in headfirst into turning and quickly lost interest, id like to dip my toe into spoon carving for as cheap as possible. What are the basics to carving spoons from green wood? It looks like some use a curved gouge and others use a hook knife. I want to keep it simple on this one, because carving spoons should be about as simple as it gets...

[Eric.]

Google Peter Follansbee and you'll find more articles about spoons than you'll ever want to read.  I think he's had a spoon article in every PWW issue for the last two years.  I can't believe there's that much to say about such a boring topic.

[bleedinblue]

About half way through your post, Eric, I was trying to figure out how there could be that much content on the subject.  It seems like one of those things that could be cool to do, kinda peaceful and zen, but anything longer than a five minute Youtube video and I'd have to tap out.

[Eric.]

Yeah I might do it once.  Then never again.  I mean it's a spoon.  And besides, plastic and metal way mo betta.

[pkinneb]

To each their own but you are right on the number of articles on them in PWW  

[jjongsma]

It's actually fairly addictive in a way. I do quite a bit of spoon carving. It's a nice bit of low-stress between-furniture-projects woodworking. They make great little gifts, and there's quite a bit more to it than you might think. Experimenting with different shapes, different "cranks", different bowl-neck-handle transitions, different woods, etc.

In any case, I think that the cheapest way to get into it is with a pair of knives: a straight "sloyd" knife and a hook knife. The Mora 106 is kind of the gold standard for affordable straight knives. It's around $25 I think, and very good quality. And you may find yourself using it in normal woodworking projects as well. It gets a bit trickier with hook knives. Since they're more of a special-purpose tool, they're more difficult to find and a bit more expensive. The one that I started with and used for a couple of years (and probably one of the the most accessible and affordable options) is a Mora 164. It works, but it's not great. It takes quite a bit of skill to get a nice clean finish on the inside of a spoon bowl with a 164. Unfortunately, the other options for hook knives are less readily-available and more expensive. So I guess I'd recommend a 164 for a beginner and then if you get more serious about it, you can get a better one later. Those two knives together should only put you out about $50-60, I think. You'll probably also want a decent hatchet for roughing out the blanks, unless you plan to use a bandsaw.

Aside from tools, I think one of the most important things for a beginning spoon carver is to use an agreeable wood. Do not try to carve your first spoon in kiln-dried hard maple. Or any dry wood, for that matter. You'll probably hate it. If at all possible, find something green, preferably something relatively soft. Good choices include birch, cherry, boxelder, etc.

[Pwk5017]

Thanks for the source, i will have to look him up. The name definitely sounds familiar. 

 

Yes, all valid points of why i dont want to spend much on the endeavor . Like turning, i thought it was going to be awesome and my lathe and tools are collecting dust in the garage. Thankfully, i purchased everything used, so i wont lose my hat on the ordeal. 

 

Im anti-plastic in all aspects of the kitchen. I dont have a plastic lined dishwasher, all my lunch containers are glass, no teflon or funky cookware. I keep it safe with metal, ceramic, and wood. 

[Eric.]

3 minutes ago, Pwk5017 said:

Im anti-plastic in all aspects of the kitchen. I dont have a plastic lined dishwasher, all my lunch containers are glass, no teflon or funky cookware. I keep it safe with metal, ceramic, and wood. 

Well I appreciate the sentiment and I prefer non-plastic too...but I'm not sure ladling some soup is gonna cause a premature BPA-induced death. LOL

Wood is just a piss-poor material when it comes to liquids.  Especially boiling hot liquids.  And a spoon is not exactly something that I consider display-worthy.  So I don't know, I guess there's just no motivation for me personally.

[Tom King]

There is a man at the lake here, that does amazingly well carving spoons, spatulas, and such.   He sells a lot to shops, and at arts and crafts fairs.

https://www.ncfolk.org/folk-artists/wayne-hermann/

[djhphoto]

I found "The Art of Spoon Carving" video by Jarrod Stone Dahl very helpful. It's on sale at shopwoodworking.com at the moment. 

[Unknown craftsman]

There's no rules when it comes to Spoon carving.I don't do green wood because i have plenty of scraps and they are a favorite for cooks that use nonstick pans. They make great gifts around the holidays.

I use gouges and goose neck scraper leave some tool marks behind esp on the handles.Heres some I made from teak and mahogany. I also make coffee scoops 

[Coop]

I can see spoon carving but it looks like a lathe is required prior to the carving. That throws me out of the ring! I have to have my scrambled eggs soft and constantly folded, and a wooden spatula would be cool, but I guess teflon will always be with me

[pkinneb]

2 hours ago, Unknown craftsman said:

...Heres some I made from teak and mahogany. I also make coffee scoops 

 

 

 

Very nice!!

[Tpt life]

7 hours ago, K Cooper said:

I can see spoon carving but it looks like a lathe is required prior to the carving. That throws me out of the ring! 

How do ya figure? There are lots of guys going from firewood, to froe, to hatchet, to carving...all with no lathe. 

[Coop]

1 hour ago, C Shaffer said:

How do ya figure? There are lots of guys going from firewood, to froe, to hatchet, to carving...all with no lathe. 

I guess you're right. Thus the word carving

[jjongsma]

16 hours ago, djhphoto said:

I found "The Art of Spoon Carving" video by Jarrod Stone Dahl very helpful. It's on sale at shopwoodworking.com at the moment. 

I'm sure that's very good, although I haven't seen it. I really like Jarrod's spoons and he's a good teacher. Here's a video from Adam Hawker that I think is quite good if you're serious about learning traditional spoon carving:

Yes, it's long (~2 hours), but it's free, and it's kind of like taking a spoon carving class.

Of course, If you're not really interested in traditional spoon carving and just want to reproduce the sort of simple wooden spoons that you can buy in the store, then you don't really need this level of detail. It all depends on what you want to do.

[Pwk5017]

Those coffee scoops are great! I agree with the sentiments of boredom etc, but there is something about different species and subtle curves that make spoon carving appealing. I need it to be fast though, i dont want to spend two hours on a spoon. I figured it was something i could do while my wife and i sit outside on the deck with the dogs playing. Sometimes i feel like a mad scientist fettered away down in the basement at all times. 

 

I think im going to go in for a gouge and a hook knife to start. Looks like some people use a flat bottom spoke shave effectively for the handle and outside of the bowl. 

[jjongsma]

4 hours ago, Pwk5017 said:

Those coffee scoops are great! I agree with the sentiments of boredom etc, but there is something about different species and subtle curves that make spoon carving appealing. I need it to be fast though, i dont want to spend two hours on a spoon. I figured it was something i could do while my wife and i sit outside on the deck with the dogs playing. Sometimes i feel like a mad scientist fettered away down in the basement at all times. 

 

I think im going to go in for a gouge and a hook knife to start. Looks like some people use a flat bottom spoke shave effectively for the handle and outside of the bowl. 

A gouge and a hook knife are both for the inside of the bowl, which is honestly a minority of the work in making a spoon. If you're trying to keep your investment down, I'd choose one of those and go with that. While a spokeshave can indeed be helpful in shaping the handle and back of the bowl, it's not the ideal tool for that, and it's not going to be very useful for the neck transition unless you plan to make spoons like this with almost no curves (which I personally find very unappealing, but apparently people buy them):

I personally think that the straight sloyd knife is basically the one indispensable tool in spoon carving.

One additional note about gouges and spokeshaves. While they will work for some things, they're basically two-handed tools. And if you're using both hands for the tool, you then need to find some other way to hold the spoon. Workholding for something the shape of a spoon can be a challenge even in the workshop with vises, etc. But if you're hoping to do it out on the deck (which I fully support -- it makes it a much more enjoyable and social activity), your options will be even more limited. Knives are basically one-handed tools, which makes it much easier to casually pick up the spoon and carve a bit while you're sitting on the deck.

 

[Tpt life]

Scorp and a shave horse. 

https://www.woodcraft.com/products/pfeil-swiss-made-scorp