I’ve never been happy with any of the spoons I’ve carved. They lack that certain grace of form. I think that I’ve found the answer in a YouTube tutorial posted by Zed of Zed Outdoors. In this film Adam Hawker describes how he carves a short handled Swedish spoon.
He takes you through the process and produces a spoon explaining details as the project proceeds. As with all artists he makes the process seem so simple. So I thought I would give it a try – after all it only took him about 2 hours to complete his spoon.
About a week ago the dear wife noticed a red alder had fallen on a semi-trailer parked next to the road out of town. On seeing this project I drove right over and from the cut branch pile I selected an arm sized piece. From this I cut two billets; splitting them should yield enough wood for three or four spoons. Plenty of room for error and refinement.
As Adam suggested, I selected the billet with the fewest twig growth marks for my first attempt. Following Adam’s instructions I striped the bark and beveled it. This was a bit more difficult that Adam illustrated. Perhaps my axe blade is contoured differently. No mind, A bit of fiddling and chisel work and my blank looked rather like his.
Having established the profile on the top of the spoon, I establish the second profile: the outline. This is the view of the spoon from the top or bottom. I marked and cut it. In doing so I used his suggestion to saw cut protective notches to the slenderest part of the handle. I was able to rough out the major portions of the profile without breaking the safety block. At this point I noticed that the bowl seems a bit wide; I’ll fix that later with my knife.
Now that I’ve completed the second profile, it’s on to the bottom. The bottom profile starts with a one-inch flat section centered on the one-third line. The spoon will curve upwards from these bounds, giving it a bottom crank.
With the profiles completed, the spoon is “locked into the wood”. The next step is to round the square edges and carve a design on the handle; then sand and seal.
Greetings from the far side of the world, and thank you very much Adam for sharing your artistry. Thanks also to Zed for sharing this wonderful tutorial; love your work.
I plan to carve another spoon right away from another piece of the harvested billet. This ensures that I have the process down and works the wood while it is still green. So, I’m off to the woods for a bit of down time filled with cordage making and spoon carving.