Classic straight-handled, hardwood wooden spoons are a fantastic theme for the wood carver. But there is so much more than you can do with that handle as chip carving, oven rack hooks, and relief carving.
Click on the images for a full-sized free spoon carving pattern.
Today is a “nose to the grindstone – shoulder to the wheel” day of work on the upcoming books from Fox Chapel Publishing. So I am off to work and will post something more substantial tomorrow.
Wooden spoons make great projects for any pyrographer. The small bowls, front and back, of the spoon can become your background for these free doodle patterns.
Most manufactured spoons are made from bamboo, beechwood, birch, or poplar – all woods that are excellent for our wood burning.
Since your pattern work is burned – scorched – directly into the wood the design that you create becomes a permanent part of that kitchen utensil.
Happily as wood burners we are not limited to just spoons. Spatulas, forks, knives, and even rolling pins make great pyrography backgrounds.
While getting the Monday, January 7th free doodle patterns post ready I came across all of these links on wooden spoon wood burning, and wooden spoon wood carving. Since I had them all in one place I thought I would share them with you.
If you wood burn wooden spoons I think you might have some fun learning how to wood carve your own. Basswood blanks are a great wood to start your spoon carving journey. As your carving skills grow you can then move onto poplar, maple, and beechwood – all of which burn well.
If you are a new wood carver there is nothing more fun than creating your own kitchen spoons. Anything goes from the classic straight handle oval-bowled spoon to intrigue Welsh Love spoons, even modern twisted handle pouring ladles. Spoons are one of those ‘guaranteed’ success projects.
Please share with your family, friends, and fellow spoon carvers on reddit, facebook, and twitter.
A few simple additions to your spoon carving project will make you work stand out from the crowd.
This right-handed stirring spoon, worked from a 1″ thick, 3″ wide, 12″ long basswood blank, features a small scroll line and leave design that has been relief carved with gentle roll-over edges.
To make the relief designs snap off the spoon handle a 3/8″ round gouge was used to texture the background area behind the scroll and leaves. Cut very shallow gouge marks that follow the grain of the handle.
Ears on either side of the top of the spoon bowl add a little extra touch to the joint area where the bowl transitions into the handle.
This wonderful Holiday present is perfect for any chief in your family and takes only one or two evenings of carving to create.
Wood carving is coming back into style, and making kitchen utensils is among the easiest ways to learn the craft. This beautifully illustrated guide by master woodcrafter Lora S. Irish teaches the basics of wooden spoon carving.
Perfect for beginners, the book presents 12 step-by-step projects that illustrate a variety of historic carving styles. A selection of mix-and-match patterns offer suggestions for creating dozens of unique designs for spoons and other implements — forks, ladles, dippers, spatulas, knives, pie servers, and scoops. In addition to clear, detailed directions accompanied by helpful drawings, inspiring photographs illustrate decorative ideas for using the carved spoons in kitchen wreaths, centerpieces, and other ornaments.
A great gift for crafters seeking a new hobby, this book is loaded with stylish designs for handmade treasures.
“Incredible full color photographs detail each step in creating this classic art-form. Learn what you need to know about carving sets, knives, and what type of wood is best to start out with. You are going to love The Art of Spoon Carving. Get a copy today.” — Texas Kitchen and Garden and More”
Today the steps for carving a basic wooden spoon have been posted on my new page – Wood Carving a Basic Wooden Spoon. So go grab your carving kit, gloves, and a 3″ by 1 1/2″ x 12″ basswood blank and join me as we work through the general steps needed to create your own kitchen stirring spoon.
Now before we begin – before some retired mechanical engineer writes me that my project spoon is not a perfectly dissected ovoid or that my handle is not absolutely parallel to the center line of the bowl – just let me say that spoon carving is an art form that has natural imperfections.
Handmade spoons have dings, dents, bends, wobble curves, and even warping handles. No matter how hard you try to sand your spoon perfectly smooth I guarantee that you will discover an area of five that need a little more attention. If you want a “perfect spoon” buy one. If you want to have fun, enjoy your carving, and be really creative … Carve One!
Today we will be taking a quick look at The Art of Spoon Carving. This is a quick look because I simply do not have the time or room on a blog to post what we can cover in a full, 156 page book. This is a condensed project fromThe Art of Spoon Carving, by Lora S. Irish – twelve step-by-step projects, 57 unique spoon patterns, and lots of photos.
Shown in the photo below, from top to bottom: Large chip carving knife, 1/2″ bent round gouge, 3/8″ v-gouge, 3/8″ straight round gouge, 5/8″ wide sweep round gouge, and a hooked push knife.
Step 1 – Tracing and Creating the Blank
Begin by tracing your pattern onto your wood blank. This basic wooden spoon is worked on a 12″ long x 1 1/4″ thick x 3″ wide basswood blank. There are four basic methods that you can use to create your rough blank – bench knife, coping saw, scroll saw, or draw knife.
Please click on the pattern below for a full-sized printable image. Since I find that I use a spoon pattern many time I begin my project by tracing the pattern onto a sheet of chipboard to create a reusable tracing template. An empty, large cereal box works very well. You can see my chipboard template in the photo above, under the original antique spoon at the top.
For my rough-cut wood blank I used a draw knife. Please visit Four Methods to Cutting a Spoon Blank for the step-by-step instructions to rough cutting your spoon blank.
There are four easy methods to rough cutting your wood carving spoon blank – bench knife, coping saw, draw knife, and scroll saw. Your bench knife or coping saw work wonderfully on thin woods that are under 3/4″ thick, and soft woods as basswood. Go to your scroll saw or draw knife for thick, 1″ or more blanks and for your hardwoods as walnut and cherry.
Basswood spoon blanks – I personally shop EBay.com for my basswood blanks. I can see the exact bundle of wood that I am bidding or buying. Plus it is easy to find thicker and wider wood and un-planed , rough-sawn wood blanks that are perfect to bent handled spoons. You can any carving wood to create decorative spoons, but I prefer basswood especially when I am working on a new design or shape.
Every wood carving tool set should contain a high-quality bench knife or large chip carving knife. This tool is the main stay of our craft and you can accomplish almost all your carving strokes with just a bench knife. I personally prefer a large chip carving knife as my bench knife because it puts my hand closer to the wood.
The bench knife can be used to cut the general shape of your spoon. Work the cutting edge of the knife with the direction of the wood grain of your basswood blank as much as possible.
Take thin slivers of wood with each cut by keeping the blade angle low to the wood. Taking too deep a cut at the beginning of the stroke can cause your knife to bind up as it goes deeper into the wood. If this happens simply back the knife out of the deep cut and re-cut along the sliver taking a more shallow, thin approach.
Curves can be cut by first creating a series of push cuts towards the center point of the curve. Reverse the spoon blank in your hand and make a second series of push cuts to release the first.
Work along the sides of the template patterns to free the spoon shape from the blank.
The bench knife is the slowest – most time consuming – of the four methods to rough cutting your spoon blank, yet it remains my favorite. A bench knife rough-out can take several hours but for me it is a time spent quietly, and slowly enjoying moving a sharp knife across the wood.
Coping Saw
The coping saw is a great woodworking tool that you can use to quickly reduce your wood blank into your rough cut spoon. The saw hold a scroll saw blade between two widely spaced arms, giving you plenty or room to cut tight, intrigue curves along the edges of your spoon shape.
Create a chipboard template of your spoon pattern. Lay the template onto your carving block and using a marking pen.
To use a coping saw for your rough cut steps you will need to secure your wood blank to a non-moving, non-rocking surface with plenty of open space to work the saw. Around my studio the most solid surface is my porch railing.
Because the wood blank for this project is thin stock, 1/2” thick, sandwich the wood blank between two scrap basswood boards. This gives the back side of the wood blank added strength during the cutting process and protects the wood blank from clamp marks.
Wrap a wide piece of non-skid kitchen mat around the outside of the wood sandwich. Place the sandwich on your secure surface and clamp into place.
Coping saw blades come in a variety of tooth patterns, shapes, and spacing between teeth. A general, all-purpose cutting blade works well for most spoon projects.
At the end of each arm of your coping saw is a small levered screw that can be loosen to open the hole that will hold the end of the saw blade. Set the blade into your coping saw with the blade teeth pointed down or into the cut as you work a push stroke.
The coping saw cuts on the down stroke and is held at a right angle to your work surface to create as straight a cut wall as possible.
When you have completed cutting one side of your wedding spoon, remove the spoon blank from the clamps and re-position the blank so that you can cut the second side.
Draw Knife
The draw knife is a two handled, flexible straight blade that is used to rough cut the spoon shape from your wood blank. The blade has a chiseled edge that when pulled along the wood blank, working with the wood grain, removes long, thin slices quickly. I will note here that if you are a walking stick, hiking stick, or cane carver a draw knife becomes a ‘must have’ for easy stick shaping.
You will need a strong, secure base onto which you can clamp your wood blank during the draw knife session. Because this is a two-handed grip tool you can put a great deal of power and pressure into each cutting stroke which can rock a light weight table or work bench.
The work bench in my studio is too light weight to handle the power pulls of a draw knife, but the porch rail, just off the back door, has the strength I need so that the energy of each cut goes directly into cutting the blank.
I clamp my wood blank to the top rail with non-skid mats and a clutch bar clamp, about 18″ from the railing corner. The corner post gives the railing the strength and the 18″ space gives me elbow room to work.
The draw knife works best on wood blanks that have been cut with a straight grain lines that are parallel to the cut edge of the blank. The long, powerful strokes tend to find and flow with the grain and can pop-out large pieces of wood or split the blank along the grain.
Find and mark the grain direction of your wood blank with a marking pen or dark pencil. Lay your spoon pattern onto the wood aligned with that grain line. A draw knife follows the grain of the wood closely.
The pull stroke, working the cutting edge towards you, is a smooth natural motion that will quickly shape your blank. Note that I use an opposing hand grip on the handles of the draw knife. I find that I have more control over the straightness of the stroke and can easily roll the blade over the rounding spoon handle shape evenly.
Push strokes can also be made with a draw knife. In the photo, above, a push stroke cuts from the handle area into the handle/bowl curved joint.
If you are working extra-thick wood – 5/4’s and above – or want to cut several spoon blanks at once to later carving, the draw knife makes quick work of the rough-out stage of carving. The four top spoons, shown above, were all rough cut using a draw knife in one carving session that lasted just a tad bit more than an hour.
Scroll Saw
Using a scroll saw to cut your spoon blanks makes creating any rough-cut spoon blank quick and simple. The steps, directions, and instructions to using a scroll saw to cut your carving or pyrography blanks is featured in an in-depth project – Cross Crafting Seminar – an eight page project with free patterns, here on LSIrish.com.
Four Methods for Cutting Your Spoon BlankLet’s explore the ways in which you can create that rough-cut spoon blank – bench knife, draw knife, coping saw, and scroll saw. This article includes the links to our Cross Crafting Seminar that takes an in-depth look at using a scroll saw in our wood carving and pyrography projects with three free Lora S. Irish patterns.
Did you know that there are literally dozens of different styles and designs of wooden spoons, forks, knives, ladles, and spatulas that you can carve with a bench knife, bent round gouge, and a draw knife. Check out Spoon, Fork, and Ladle Styles for Wood Carving, Traditional Spoon Styles and Shapes. All of the spoons, forks, knives, scoops, and spatulas patterns shown here are available in Lora S. Irish’s newest book – The Art of Spoon Carving– available at Amazon.com.
The top spoon in this photo, the one that is black with age is between 125 to 100 years old and was my great grandmother Elsie Burchinal’s spoon. She handed it on to my grandmother, who gave it to my mother, and today it has an honored place in my kitchen spoon jar.
Wood carving is coming back into style, and making kitchen utensils is among the easiest ways to learn the craft. This beautifully illustrated guide by master woodcrafter Lora S. Irish teaches the basics of wooden spoon carving. Perfect for beginners, the book presents 12 step-by-step projects that illustrate a variety of historic carving styles.
A selection of mix-and-match patterns offer suggestions for creating dozens of unique designs for spoons and other implements — forks, ladles, dippers, spatulas, knives, pie servers, and scoops. In addition to clear, detailed directions accompanied by helpful drawings, inspiring photographs illustrate decorative ideas for using the carved spoons in kitchen wreaths, centerpieces, and other ornaments. A great gift for crafters seeking a new hobby, this book is loaded with stylish designs for handmade treasures.
Ready to mix some color? Learn how to create a full palette range of colors, tones, and pastels using just eight craft paints – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, and white. This Color Wheel Flower project includes a free wood carving, pyrography, gourd art pattern by Lora S. Irish.
