Alder spoon and Kuksa so far.

I got hold of some Alder yesterday, I love carving with Alder, its colour, how it carves and how it finishes make it one of my favourite. My Nephew who is 6 asked me last weekend if I could make him a spoon and a Kuksa after seeing the ones around the kitchen, so I thought I would make them out of the Alder.

Heres some pics from today



Adzing out the Kuksa.



Smoothing the inside with the gouge.



Next stage is to thin and shape the outside.

The spoon is almost done just to leave to dry and then finish with the knife.

Old Oaks

We felled these two Oaks on Tuesday as they were becoming unsafe, they produced quite a haul of timber, sadly not all mine, the bulk of it was for a School so the children could sit on in a wildlife area so it was transported in lumps and ringed up on site, some went for firewood and I managed to keep a bit for myself. I am thinking of getting a chainsaw mill as it would have been perfect to plank into boards, very nice old timber, we counted over a hundred and sixty rings.
Had some tractor fun aswell loading the timber onto the truck :)

Last of the Silver Maple

This spoon was made from the last of the Silver Maple that I had from a job, it has a tooled finish and I thought I would add some decoration by carving into the handle and adding a cross, I'm not sure where the inspiration came from on this one, I think it looks like a cathedral. I am pleased with the result.

New to the collection

I got this very nice Elwell axe the other day, another to add to my ever growing axe collection.
Its a pleaching axe I think, its 4 lbs and in very good condition with a good handle made of Hickory, I love old axes and I always keep an eye out for them when out and about, this one will be getting used at work and kept in the truck.

The tools that I use.

I have got quite alot of photos of myself working recently and have got some good ones of the tools that I use and of them in use so I decided to put some together on my blog.



This is my tool roll, from left to right, gouge chisel by Hans Karlsson, spoon knife by Svante Djarv,My polar whittler knife, a couple of scotch eyed augers, small carving knife by John Millington, guoge by Marples and a Frosts 106



The Adze I use is a small Adze by Hans Karlsson.
Here it is being used to carve out the inside of a bowl.



I love using this Adze it makes light work of carving bowls and Kuksa's.

I have quite a few Axes but the one that I use alot at the moment is my Gransfors Bruks large carving axe as it is very well made and carves skillfully, the steel holds an edge well and the Red Beech handle is perfectly shaped.





A couple of photos of my knives being used, first my Polar knife.



And my Svante Spoon knife.



I have been a bit busy recently but I have a couple of spoons on the go, I just need a bit of time to finish them and I will post them up on here.