Oak Spoon

   Occasionally I go down to my work shop with a project in mind but sometimes I go to the workshop and make things just for the heck of it.  There is little practical use for the small wooden spoon and you can certainly buy as nice a spoon from the local $ store.(but not in oak) ( remember when the Dollar store was the 5 and 10 store?).

    The motivation for this project was not totally frivolous, in fact, I had decided to work on my 3D shaping and design.  Wood doesn't have to be flat and square all the time,  I see work done by other people incorporating sweeping curves and interesting angles and I want to include those things in my work too. Doing that sort of work requires new skills and techniques, I choose a spoon is a small practice piece.

Oak spoon carved by hand and machine.

these and some needle files were the "by hand" tools.

this was the" by machine" tool

During this project I learned a number of important things:

1.Next time use pine or basswood, oak is really hard.

2. Leave the handle long until the very end, it gives something to clamp to the bench or hold.

3. Sharp, sharp, sharp tools are key.

4. Shaping wood is as enjoyable, or maybe more enjoyable than squaring wood but is more difficult.  I need to learn to think in three dimensions.