sked

sked

Tuesday 19 November 2013

one to one spoon carving course.

I was contacted by someone enquiring about  my spoon carving course asking if I could run a two day course. Normally I run one day courses and have found that although it is enough time to cover most of the basses in order to carve a spoon for beginers, it isn't enough time to go into too much depth on some of the challenges people may encounter.

Angels arrived and although she had carved a few spoons before classed herself as a beginer.
Angels showed great strength, technique and skill with the axe. We ran through safe axe use and how to get to the stage with a blank where you then use the knife to fine tune the shape.


















I went through how to carve the bowl with the axe and also showed Angel how to use a saw to create stop cuts, this method is good for beginers and can also speed up the process.














After the axe work was complete we went through the safe use of the straight knife and the various grasps and also the safe use of the crook knife.














After the first day we had ran through what wood to choose, how to choose the piece of wood looking for knots and also covered reaction wood.
After the first day we had ran through the whole process from wood in the round to a spoon.


















A happy student indeed :)

On day two I got Angels to carve a blank to the point where the knife can be used, Angels remembered the processes well and soon had a very useable blank.
We then covered sharpening, first we covered sharpening the knife and then the axe.



























Then with the newly sharpened tools Angel set to work to create another blank, this time her production time had come right down so she then set to work to carry on with the knife.


















one of the spoons Angels produced.

All in all Angels went away with a couple of spoons and a couple of blanks to carry on at home.
I had a great weekend teaching Angels and she was very happy with her new skills and the spoons she produced.

2 comments:

  1. Having never picked up an axe, carving knives, etc etc before August this yr, after a day spoon carving course in Canterbury with the lovely Jill Swan of Treedom Woods, I came away with my very first spoon and had a terrific time.

    I was privileged to be invited to a weekend spoon carving with Jill and other cracking people even though I was a true novice, I made a twatter and had now got the bug.

    Although I had managed to carve 2 usable spoons which make me laugh I was getting extremely frustrated and demoralized and knew that if I wanted to continue with my new found hobby then I needed some one to one tuition.

    After a few messages with Simon going backwards and forwards the one to one course was booked :-).

    From a novice point of view I truly couldn't of asked for more - I learnt so much with regards to wood, tools, sharpening, grain, axing, cutting etc etc etc - too much to list here, and for me being able to ask questions without feeling seriously daft and having things explained until I understood helped me to digest the above things I learnt, and carve the spoon above.

    I would highly recommend this course to anyone interested in learning to carve - not only is Simon a cracking guy but he is a terrific teacher,


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  2. Thank you for the very kind comments about my course. You were a perfect student and I wish you all the best with your carving, I look forward to seeing your future spoons.

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