Spoon with a twist and some knots

[Ryan Mooney]

Just finished this up. Its a spoon as second/third prize for our local homebrewers competition (about 30" long). I'm not a great carver so it was a bit of a stretch in a few spots but came out alright (I do a fair number of simple spoons as gifts, etc.. but no real detail carving). The handle is modeled on a 2 row barley head, although I had to carve one on both sides and wrap it around a little (plus a little artistic license on the ends) to make it work as a handle.

The knots were my first real attempt at that (except for a practice piece I did before jumping in here); not as hard as it might seem but certainly not perfect yet. I think I'll try some other more complicated ones having gotten these to come out ok.

The twist is three strands, instead of round I did them on an oval. Turns out doing an oval is quite a bit harder to look just right than round, the flat parts could be better.

C&C welcome.

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[Karl Andersson]

Very nicely done - if that is second or third prize, first prize must be a trip to the Bahamas (or Milwaukee). What kind of wood is it, and was it kiln dried or green when you carved it? appears to be a very well-executed design and carving.
Karl

[Ryan Mooney]

Very nicely done - if that is second or third prize, first prize must be a trip to the Bahamas (or Milwaukee). What kind of wood is it, and was it kiln dried or green when you carved it? appears to be a very well-executed design and carving.
Karl

I used hickory which is what I've been using for less ornamented spoons, was probably not the best choice here as its hard to get clean in the smaller details. Tends to leave some fuzzies that are hard to get rid of in the smaller inside cuts. It was part of an offcut that I bought as a lot from a furniture factory in 2004-2005 so I reckon it was originally kiln dried but its also been sitting in my shop since then.

[russell dietrich]

Ryan
I like the shape of the spoon and handle. In my opinion the carving is not overdone, very simple but elegant. What are the basic tools required for that type of carving?

[russell dietrich]

Ryan,
In the previous post when I said simple I did not mean easy to do. I meant I like the way you did not overdo the elements, if that makes any sense.

[Ryan Mooney]

Ryan
I like the shape of the spoon and handle. In my opinion the carving is not overdone, very simple but elegant. What are the basic tools required for that type of carving?

Disclaimer: again I'm a pretty amateur carver so others probably have better guidance.

For the twist I basically followed the same idea as this episode of the woodwrights shop: http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/video/2600/2603.html
Although I didn't use a lathe to make it round, I just roughed it oval with a draw knife and them touched it up with an Iwasaki file (these are really nice and worth the money imho). Normally I'd have used a lathe to do the round part but I had some vision in my head that oval would look better with the spoon. In practice that was probably a bad idea as getting the twist to follow the oval nicely was harder than it is on a round piece and the added visuals turn out to be not so much.

For the bowl I have one nice gouge to carve the inside. The outside of the bowl was roughed with a plain old 1/2" bench chisel and then again refined with the iwasaki.

The braid I did with two small carving chisels.
First and most used one is a short (2" blade, 3" handle) straight bladed chisel about 1/4" wide that I got as part of a small set at a yard sale for $3 (for the set), its not the best chisel for holding an edge but takes a new edge pretty well.

Second is a small skew chisel, its NOT this set http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/pag...332,43334&ap=1 but its a dead ringer design wise for the 3/8" skew in set B.

Most important is a scrap of leather with some green honing compound on it Every time the cut goes from feeling like your cutting butter from the fridge to like you're cutting butter from the freezer.. its time to hone it a few strokes.

For cleanup I used a half round file on the larger parts and a riffler (very useful for refining the curves barley heads).

Sanding the details I tool a couple small slips of wood and used some 3M spray adhesive to stick some 220 grit to them to make some small "sanding files" (suggested by someone on another forum, so I can't take credit for the idea - works pretty darn good).

Other than that... patience and don't get in a hurry. I have something around 20-30 hours into this as I was sort of learning as I went and did some prototyping for several of the steps (a good carver would I believe be something like an order of magnitude faster).

[Margie Melendy]

Ryan Thank you for the detailed information. I just joined and I'm interested in chip carving but my hubby Jerry is wanting to carve spoons. We're just got our flex knives today. carving knives for him and chip knives me.This should help him. Do Know if anyone does chip carving? Margie