Spoon carving course

I have just finished a spoon carving course with 4 beginners, the day went really well and I was suprised at how well everyone did.
We started the day by splitting a few logs of Poplar and Willow.

  

Once everyone had decided on a design and had marked it out onto the wood we started the axe work.

















I was very happy with how well everyone managed to get the hang of the axe work and were all soon feeling confident enough with the technique.
















Next it was on to the knife work once everyone was happy enough with the blank.

After going over various knife grasps everyone started to refine their spoons.
It was interesting how some people got on well with some of the spoon knives but not the others, Lee Stoffers's scorp went down well with everyone, and also Magnus Sundelin's spoon knife.

Angela asked to try chip carving, so I went over the basics so that everyone could give it a go.














 A picture of the spoons, I think they did really well I'm very pleased with their progress considering they had never carved spoons or anything else before.















If anyone is interested in joining one of my courses you can find more info here or get in touch by email at spooncarvingcourse@gmail.com

A few cooking scoops.

I have been making a few cooking scoops for my stock to sell, they are roughly around 190mm to 230mm long.

This one is from Norway Maple, very nice wood, tough to carve but finishes well and has lovely flecks in the wood.

This one is from Plum, it has some nice spalting in it.

Lastly one from a large piece of Lilac I managed to get, it was 7 inches in log with no rot in its centre.

I love Lilac for carving it finishes really well with the knife, this one was from the heart wood and the sap wood just started to come through when carving the bowl.

Cherry eating spoon

I have really got back into carving fruit woods again, normally of late I have been carving cooking spoons from Willow or Poplar but after collecting some Cherry and Plum I have really enjoyed the beauty of the fruit woods again, not only does it carve well it can show up lovely grain or patterns.