How I carve a spoon

(Part 1)

There are a lot of different ways to carve a spoon. The methods I use are determined by the desired forms I'm looking for, my knowledge of woodworking, and what tools I have available to me. I try to use as many human powered tools as I can, but sometimes resort to using power tools, because of the age-old dilemma−lack of time, tools, or knowledge.

 I prefer hand tools, because they are quiet. The dog will come into my shop and lay under my feet, if I'm using hand tools, but runs away anytime I turn on a sander. Also, hand tools leave a better surface. Using a spoke shave or drawknife cuts the wood to a smooth polish, which is better at revealing grain qualities.

I have an admitted bias against power sanders that stems from my feeling better about what I make when I use traditional woodworking methods. Carving with hand tools is a more skilled process and one worth knowing, if your goal is to gain a more complete understanding of the woodworking process.  Carving a spoon handle with a drawknife on a shave horse takes practice; carving on a belt sander takes little more than a tolerance to dust.  But we live in the modern age and our modern time-savers have their place. Sometimes, after I have been carving spoons for 6 hours, I just want to get finished, so I can go have a drink with some friends or take a much needed nap.

 Getting to my point, what I try to do is strike a balance between tradition and time. Norm Abram and Roy Underhill are heroes of mine without conflict. My shop has enough room in it for both hand tools and power tools, which I will demonstrate with this pictorial narrative.

Step 1) Get a board; this is an off cut (1-1/2" x 2" x 12’) of Cherry

Step 2) Draw a spoon. This one is going to be around 17"long…

…after first cuts on the band saw.

Step 3) Cut out top profile on the band saw.

I do a lot of the initial carving freehanded on the band saw. This is a practice that cannot be endorsed by the American Council of Wood Shop Safety, but it is fast and relatively safe. 

Step 4) To open the bowl of the spoon I use a foot clamp by sitting on a short stool made just for spoon carving. It’s about a foot high and I'm about 6' tall, so this gives me plenty of foot power and puts the work at about chest height.

And let me define foot clamp as a clamp to hold down work by stepping on it with one’s foot.  It’s surprisingly effective. Note the spoon is on top of a shop mat, but I also use a piece of leather when I opt for carving outside.

The New Ghetto Workshop

This has been the season of the toolbox. The woodworking world is buzzing about the subject after the recent release and then re-release of Christopher Schwarz book The Anarchist’s Tool Chest. Its a great read and I was lucky to have found it at the beginning of my woodworking endeavors. Schwarz’s book proposes that a tool box is an essential piece of shop furniture because it will give woodworkers a finite parking space for their tools leading them focus on quality and not quantity of tools. Any good tool box should be designed to keep you efficient in your craft. Shwarz's book an many other great books/ blogs/ and resources can be found at www.lostartpress.com

The blue milk paint makes it look like the Tardis's little sister. Tool box space ship?

It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

In progress note the dovetails, this was my first project to work with dovetail joiner. Not that hard.

So I made an Anarchist’s tool box, the finish is three coats of milk paint with a Tung Oil on top. The federal blue made it turn out looking like the Tardis’s little sister from the British TV's show Dr. Who. Like the Tardis, my tool is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It’s surprising at how much stuff this thing can hold. I would recommend that any woodworker starting out in the craft should take on a tool box as one of their first woodworking projects; yes, dovetails and all.

Let it be noted that I built a traditional tool box first, made from Cypress planed and dovetailed by hand. My second tool chest took on a different agenda. Power. I like working with hand tools, less dust, no noise, more precision; they are all around safer and more pleasant to work with. Working with hand tools all the time would be great but the reality is that I’m making an attempt to be a full time wood worker, and they are much cheaper than shop assistants, so power tools in some cases are still a necessity in my shop. If time and money weren’t an issue it would be a different story.

Tech help from John Reitzer-Smith

The second tool box I call the “Jam-box-tool-box”. It solves a couple of pesky shop problems: 1) In my shop I always wear earplugs. I use power tools often enough that it’s easer to just leave them in which makes listening to the radio more difficult, and 2) All those power tools require power. I looked into contractor radios, but they are all brand specific to whatever type of cordless drill you use. I don’t know what brand of cordless drill I’m going to have 10 years from now, so I came up with a universal contractors radio that will charge any battery, phone, or iPod, and power any tool I want it to power. It’s a multi tasking machine but lets not forget the most important feature remains that it-will-rock-you.

“Jam-box-tool-box”

It’s the only AM/FM CD/MP3/WMA with front/rear AUX and Bluetooth Ready tool box I know of.  I still have my grandfather’s tool box. My grandfather was a life long Iowa farmer and I know better, but sometimes I get sentimental about grandfathers way of life, a lost way of life we will never be able to go back to, and in hindsight I’m just romanticizing the simplicity of his life that probably wasn’t that simple. But I can’t think of a more fitting comparison between his life and mine than to show the difference between our tool boxes.

Grandpa's tool box on the Left circa 1910, “Jam-box-tool-box” circa 2012 

If he were still alive, I would build him one. I know he wouldn’t have gotten as excited about Jam-box-tool-box as I do, but he would have used it as an extension chord and as an am radio.  If Grandpa was working on the tractor he was blasting the farm reports, and if I’m in the woodshop I’m cranking out the NPR. Some things don’t change.

Butcher block for a friend

 

Butcher block 23"x14" hard maple and mahogany

May 3, 2012

Hi all, this is the first post of my woodworking blog. I’ve been a serious woodworker for the last 3 years. The reason I’m making the decision to start a blog is to first and foremost is to educate people about what it means to be a woodworker in a society that has doesn’t understand the value of things and second, to promote my work and connect with other woodworkers.

Please note that good writing and photos will be sacrificed for timely and consistent posts.

Erik Tosten