You Can Carve Beautiful Wooden Spoons

you really can quickly safely and with minimal tools you can easily carve Wooden Spoons just like this one or any other shape style or configuration you'd like because you make them and it's entirely up to you how you make them this is one way that I've done it and I think it's easy and a lot of fun now spoon carving in the traditional sense is best accomplished with green wood that's still soft something like apple Maple or Birch but this is Ash scraps that I had laying around after a project and this has worked just fine for me it's a hard wood but you can do it and I'll show you how I've done it now I've taken to using an old piece of nylon Loop carpet and it protects the wood as I work on it and actually grips the edges and holds onto the wood for a pretty stable work surface I have a circle template handy so I'll use it but anything round will work find a size that fits your workpiece and use it round oval the shape of your spoon is entirely up to you you may want to draw a circle within the circle uh for the outside edge of your spoon's bow and the inside limit of the bow leaving whatever margin between the two that you feel comfortable with if you've started with a green log or branch it will help you to rough it out to a similar squared up piece of wood uh like this Dimension scrap rough is close enough so after I have the shape of my spoon Bowl I strike a s line along the length of the piece now I'm an old coot and I'm not wearing my glasses so I missed dead center and I'll run a line from the opposite side and the two will show me the center and it will be close enough you have a interesting grain in your piece of wood maybe that you'd rather follow for a curved spoon that's fine it's your spoon do whatever you want then we rough out the shape the handle whatever you choose I'm going to go for a graceful yet very slender neck because that's what I want now this might be too slender we will find out and so my spoon doesn't fall into the big pot I'm going to put a hook on the end of the handle so I'm going to leave a little more girth to the wood at the end let Begin by cleaning off a workspace on my messy bench where we can use the Vise we're going to pound on this so let's secure it tightly in the vice and because it's a block of wood right now this will be easy now we're going to use a gouge a curved chisel with an outside bevel to help as we sculpt a nicely rounded bowl a 1 in to 1 and a/4 inch works well because it roughly fits the curve I have drawn here so keeping in mind how the Grain in our wood runs we begin to nibble away at the bowl I'm choked up holding the blade of my gouge and keeping my fingers away and behind the blade we won't work too aggressively while we get to learn our piece of wood and you can see the the bull begins to take shape you know before I owned a curved gouge I did this with a straight flat bench chisel and you certainly can it can be done uh but you will have more cleanup uh more work to do at the end if you're going to use a flat chisel use a thinner one and take smaller chips but you can do it and you can make a beautiful spoon the outside bevel of this curved gouge allows you to create a nice curved track into the center of your bowl by moving the gouges handle to lessen the angle of the cut As you move along begin with a steeper cut and then ease up on that angle uh as you move into the center of the bowl you can see how I'm doing that here we've already got our Bowl now the size and depth of your spoon's bowl is your decision and that's dependent on the thickness of your workpiece and how you'll want to use your spoon anything from a a ladle to a shallow spoon that's part spatula whatever you want me I'm going a little deeper now notice this gouch it's smaller and yet it has more of a curve than the larger one you can use one like this there's no problem with that you just have to be aware of the the shape of your gouch and the relative uh cut it's going to make into the wood now I'm going to take shallower cut smaller cuts and you can see that I'm getting a scalloped effect here but because this gouge is smaller it's easier to cut through this hard wood and say it's the only one you have use it I'm all about you using whatever it is you happen to have available when you want to do a project that's the key it's a little rough but look there it is now I'm back to my larger gouge with less of a curve on it to clean up some of the scalloped edges made by the smaller gouch we're coming along fine it's looking good and you can see the margin that I still have between the edge of the bow and the outside edge of the spoon I'm going to grab one of my scrapers uh a curved scraper and try to smooth out this bowl I'm a little concerned because I well I haven't sharpened it and I know it's pretty dull right now but you can also just use it as a gauge to see how symmetrical your bowl is if that's what you're looking for yeah it's really not working too well and it's having a a fight with the hardwood that I think it's losing right here yeah we may be uh doing more harm than good you can see there's some tear out uh I'll try another part of the scraper but while it is smoothing some of the areas it's actually creating a little bit of a washboard effect uh between the harder grain and the softer areas in between the grain so I'm going to work on this a little more with another scraper I have it has a little bit more of a blade still on it yeah you can see I'm getting better shavings and look we're actually smoothing out the bow now now if you don't have any scrapers you can do uh this part right here you can begin with sandpaper and smooth this bull out we're going to move on to sandpaper shortly but you you can be doing that right now if you don't have a scraper that's not important what is important is that we know the depth of our bowl and how that relates to the amount of wood that we're going to cut away from our workpiece you know the wood we're going to hog off we don't want to cut into the bowl so I've merely dipped my pencil Point into the center of the bowl and then translated that depth onto the edge of my workpiece and I'm going to rough out uh shape of the bull I'm going to do this by looking at the shape of the bull and trying to reproduce it on the side of my workpiece and if you have used a rounded shaper to give your bow a round shape hey that's going to be the perfect template so use that now it's off to the band saw to remove all the wood that we won't need I have the shape of my spoon handle and I'm going to begin myut now I'm going to begin from the other uh I want to ease into this curve slowly and precisely so I'm going to let my saw work its way into the wood not going to force the wood into the blade I'm going to let the blade ride into the wood then I'm going to follow along the outside of my pencil line I don't want to take off any more wood between the edge of the bowl and the outside edge of my spoon I'm already pretty close as you can see I'm want to make a graceful curve here and I'm letting my blade guide me it's not so important to follow the pencil on it is right here where I have the neck very narrow already I don't want to make it any more slender and through the end now look we have a shape of a spoon and it looks good it looks pretty it's graceful but we also have this cut off and guess what flip it over and it's the template for the other side that's why I didn't even bother drawing it earlier whatever cut I came out with first I'm going to use that as the template right here to draw the other half and again the neck is very slender so I don't want to go inside my line maybe just the hair outside the line the wood's a good strong hardwood and the grain is running along the length so it's going to be strong look at that that's a pretty nice looking spoon now there are lots of ways you can do this and this coping saw is just another way you might not have a band saw you can remove this excess wood that you're not going to need whatever way you want with whatever tools that you happen to have available to you the band saw is easy and slick and I like using it this coping salt could use a new blade and you will need a lot of elbow grease but it'll get the job done well here we are now I've lost the uh pencil drawing that I put on the side for the shape of my bowl so I'm going to reproduce those steps right now dip the pencil point in and gauge the depth and then translate that to the side and then try to reproduce the shape of that bull on the outside edge and I can use this scraper as a template it's a little more difficult because of the curved cut of the spoon bow here but again you're just roughing it out and what's most important is you need an accurate depth of your bowl and then you have to decide you know what margin you want remaining between the depth of your bowl and the bottom shape of your spoon you can give yourself a lot of wood to work with here just so you can be careful and uh as you begin I recommend that but I like a thinner more delicate Bowl you can see I've drawn the shape of the handle to include the hook that I want to add on the end and now it's back to the band saw to remove more of the wood that we won't be needing there's a lot of ways to do this and you might not want to freehand it or hold the piece of wood without support but I'm familiar with my tools and my band saw and this is the way I'm going to do it I have a lot of my band saw blade exposed here without the guard so that I could get a good video of how this is being done and remember I'm easing the wood into the blade letting the blade work its way into the wood without being forced and you can see I'm following carefully along the line especially on that slender narrow neck and as I get down towards the hook I'm going to leave a little extra because I want to shape that flat uh giving it something to rest along the edge of the pot and so I'm giving a little more wood to work with there and then I'm nibbling away at the tight radius of the hook with the band saw just back and forth a little bit at a time then I'm going to move back here and cut my way out of this piece of wood right now just missing the edge of what I want to be the [Applause] hook and there now look at that cut off there's another spoon waiting in that piece of cut off [Applause] there's still a lot of wood relative to what we'll need and what's still on this spoon blank so I'm going to cut away some more now you may not want to do this or you may want to do it a different way that's entirely up to you but notice I have a line there giving myself a pretty good margin between the depth of the bowl and the outside edge of the spoon and I'm going to trim some more wood off just outside that line and come up not to the edge but near The Edge at the top of my bowl and we still have a lot of wood on the sides the bowl slopes inward we can cut these two edges off so I'm going to do that next it's up to you how you do it if you're working with a band saw know your toes and be careful you can quickly spoil your project right now by cutting too close to the bowl and if you see daylight you'll know you've already ruined [Applause] it if symmetry is what you're looking for whatever you perform whatever task you perform on one side of your spoon you want to try to replicate that on the other you know the mirror image of it so keep in mind how you made the cut on the other side of the bow and try to duplicate that here practice makes perfect and the more you do this the more familiar you will be with the process and the easier it'll be for you well look at our spoon blank now it's coming along nicely and here's some more traditional carving tools uh straight knife and a curved knife a scoop knife now I'm going to try it on this Hardwood and my knife is pretty sharp but look I'm just getting very thin shavings and the grain is fighting me and it's not really a smooth process I might be doing more harm than good again I'm making gouges in the wood it's not a smooth process and that's not what I want especially right here on the neck we don't have a lot of extra wood to play with yeah this is a struggle not really doing anything good let's see what our curved knife will do here maybe in the bowl maybe we can uh smooth out some of the bowl using this and the technique I'm going to try is pretty much like using a scraper and I'm going to start off lightly and try to feel out the Grain and see where it fights me and where it allows me to scrape some nice shavings if I'm smooth boothing out the bll that's one thing but if I'm not I'm just creating more roughness that's another so I'm going to move on to the sanding stage the belt sander you can see I'm sitting down here just about eye level with the belt so that I can watch carefully what I'm doing and I'm using light pressure and I'm rolling and rocking the bottom of the bowl on the Belt if I don't don't keep rolling and rocking this workpiece I'm going to get a flat surface that's eating into the wood where I don't want it and I want just a very light touch and I want very smooth rounded edges so I'm rolling and rocking this is an 80 grit belt so it's pretty rough let me try it here with one hand so that you can actually see what I'm doing and I'm using the rounded Edge on this belt to get a nice shape in the curve where my meets the handle and again now you can see the rocking and rolling motion that I'm using to shape the bottom of the bowl and because I'm at eye level with the belt I can see exactly what shape my spoon is taking on I can see where there's extra wood that needs to come off and I can see where I'm getting close I use that rocking and rolling motion everywhere either even for the handle because I want a nice graceful sweep to the handle I'm back here working on the hook and I don't want it to actually stick out on the side so I'm rocking and rolling that area of the handle too moving always moving so that I am not creating flat spots but replacing them with fine graceful curves that rocking and rolling motion really gives the spoon a nice smooth shape we've already come a long way and we're progressing nicely and I want to pay particular attention to the neck ha where it's really slender I don't want to remove any more wood than I absolutely have to from that area but we have a long way to go and at eye level with my workpiece I can look at the inside of the bow and see how that corresponds to the outside shape of the bow and I can keep nibbling away and smooth consistent sweeps at the shape of the bowl until it's just how I want it and if you don't have a belt sander I understand you can do this process with sandpaper beginning with an 80 grit it will remove the wood rather quickly but I got to tell you these belt Sanders here just like this one were on sale last week at uh Harbor Freight for $58 that's hard to beat we are getting a nice shape to this spoon Bowl but I like a thin spoon and I've had some practice I've made more than a dozen of these spoons and I'm pretty confident at nibbling away more and more of the wood keeping in mind that I want the spoon to be strong and useful and practical but light and graceful so I'll continue on this belt sander for a little bit more and remove as much of wood as I dare from the handle area and the bowl and then we'll move on to the next step so here we are and it's looking pretty good next it's on to hand sanding and we're going to begin with 60 or 80 grit paper whatever you have available something coarse that will remove the wood quickly now I folded a complete sheet over into thirds and that gives me a little stiffness and that helps me as I rub it along the bows and the graceful curve of the neck to get a nice smooth sweep the thickness of this sandpaper folded in thirds gives me more support and doesn't allow my fingers to follow each little imperfection that might be in the wood and that way I can smooth in between each imperfection you know removing the high spots and and rolling and sweeping the paper to get the nice smooth shape I'm looking for notice how quickly we're progressing sure you're watching this and fast forward but we're moving along quite well I'm gripping the spoon up high on the handle which gives me excellent control and allows me to rock and roll the spoon just like I did with the belt sander as I'm sanding away with this 80 grit sandpaper and look how nicely it's shaping the spoon and as we shape it we let the wood show us when we've got it right now notice this roughness high on the handle between the soft and the hard grain we're going to use the Sandpaper and the thickness of the threefold to help us shape this smoothly without our fingers following in the grooves of the roughness that's already there watch how quickly we can smooth this out and remember we're working with Furniture gray Ash hardwood already dried and very hard and yet we're progressing quickly now we want to pay attention to the tight radius around the hook we want to smooth the lines up and into that hook and remember I want a flat area just behind the hook inside the hook for the spoon to rest against the p pot so we're going to pay attention to the wood as we shape the handle and look we're getting some nice Grain Lines that are creating a nice symmetry in the handle so we pay attention to the grain that we have to work with as we sand you know the wood throws us a lot of curb balls but sometimes it gives us happy little accidents now back into the crook of the hook into the tight spots I've folded the paper over once again and it has a rounded Edge which I'm going to use to smooth out that very tight radius inside the hook now I've chosen a piece of wood where the grain runs the length of the handle now if it did run perpendicular to this right there at the hook it would be very weak and following the grain it could easily break off just like that so it's important to know what you're working with and pay attention to the grain of your wood and at the same time appreciate the beauty of the grain as nature gives it to you now you can see inside the hook we have a lot of work to do yet and we're going to get back at that soon but right now let's look over the spoon and appreciate the graceful beauty of the grain as it corresponds to the shape that we've chosen for our spoon into the bowl and we're going to use the thickness and the support that that thickness of the trifold sandpaper gives us to help us get a smooth round shape to the inside we're going to work with the grain and we're going to sand in that radius which the grain gives us inside this bowl and we're going to remove a lot of wood while we try to even out the high and low spots that were left from the gouge and that were left from the scraper that wasn't very sharp so we have a bit of work to do but it'll go quickly with this 80 grit sandpaper we're resting the spoon Bowl on the carpet that keeps it secure and protects it and allows me to roll the spoon and my hands together to get continuously smooth sweeps as I force the Sandpaper back and forth across the wood keep in mind with sandpaper this course you're you're actually carving and sculpting the wood right now you're removing a lot of wood and you can use the opportunity to shape your spoon however you want like here where the bowl meets the handle there's a lot of wood there and we can utilize that to give a little more of an oval shape to that radius of the bowl and allow it to gracefully curve up into the handle there's a lot of wood there to work with not in the neck but right there there's still a lot of wood always pay attention to the shape of your spoon especially this rounded shape if that's what you're looking for and look closely there are some imperfections there and little chips along the grain which we're going to have to sand down to in the bowl you could see that there were some gouges and some tear out that still remain so we're going after it now with a little finer grain sandpaper this is 120 and it'll cut through the wood substantially also so we're going to use this and try to smooth the bowl even further we may have to go back to the 80 grit to quickly remove some wood on some of those deeper gouges but right now let's see how this smoother grit Works to help us refine the rounded shape and edges that's pretty good but you can still see that there are imperfections in the bowl that one's pretty deep but we have a beautiful shape and the grain really looks nice inside there I'm going to go back to the scraper here and see what I can do on that deepest gouch I'm getting some good shavings here and I am smoothing the bowl look at that chip we're going to have to sand that down paying attention to the rounded shape and remember whatever we do on this side we're going to want to do on the other side just because I'm looking for symmetry in my spoon you may not care I like the way that the palm of your hand becomes a tool in creating a nice smooth rounded shape to the Bowl just work with the Sandpaper with the shape of your bowl keep moving keep turning don't create flat spots we're trying to remove the flat spots roll the bowl inside the palm of your hand as you work along the radius and you'll get a nice smooth shape I'm taking a little off the top here not much because I don't want the profile of my spoon to curve down like that I want to keep it flat so I'm taking a long sweep right up into the handle and shaving off a little on the top because I have that Nick to remove and on the handle here I'm refining the curve following the sweep trying not to remove any more wood than I need to from that very Slender part of the neck and look we're getting a nice smooth shape right up into the handle now there's more wood I can remove here and a lot of work to do yet to get it nice and round and I'll follow the Grain and work with the grain back into the crook of the neck again I've folded the sandpaper over I'm holding the spoon by the handle I'm rocking it back and forth like this and that'll give me smooth edges not just inside the radius but also where it comes onto the outside of the spoon you can still see by the dark areas inside the bowl that we have some wood we need to remove yet before it's smooth and notice how the margin between the Inside Edge of the bull and the outside edge of the bull has been reduced so much from where it was we're giving it a a nice rounded Edge so that it's strong but it's thin and graceful now what remains of that Nick there on the curve that sweeps into the handle is basically Al just a dark color in the grein so we've smoothed that out it's gone I have some high sharp edges that I want to round over right there and I'm using this finer sandpaper to do that I know what you're thinking you're thinking that handle's too thin right there where the neck meets the bow but it's not this is good strong hardwood lot of work still where this hook meets the handle I got to get in the nooks and crannies and smooth it out and while I'm doing that I'm shaping the hook whatever way I feel at the time working with the grain letting the wood show me what shape it wants to be notice the Symmetry in the grain right up into the handle okay now we're on to some 220 sandpaper this is going to give a really soft and smooth feel to the wood it's not going to take away much wood but it's going to help round the over the sharp edges and then rounding over those edges especially along the lip of the bowl it's going to help give them some strength we don't want sharp edges to catch on things and Chip and we want the bowl and the lip of the bowl to feel nice if someone's sipping out of the spoon to taste how the bone broth is going and again we're working inside the bowl to smooth it out we're using our palm and rolling it around the radius of the bowl while we continually move our hand and the spoon so that we get continuously smooth and rounded shapes because we don't want to create any more flat shapes at this point now this fine 220 grit sandpaper leaves a nice powdery residue along the spoon and uh gives a nice creamy color to the areas that we've sanded that are in contrast to the darker areas that are low spots that we still need to work to and I'm going to move back to uh a little more coarser grit to finish up here now look this is too thick to get into the crook of the net and if I just fold it twice well I think it's a little thin but I can go to two and a half so to speak by just folding one edge of it down and allowing that to give a smoother radius to the Sandpaper as I force it into the crook of the neck and continue to smooth that inside radius of the hook I'm paying attention here where the inside radius transitions to the outside edges of the handle working with the grain to give a nice smooth graceful sweep to that transition [Music] and I'll take this opportunity to do a little refinement to the shape of the hook right there and there just want to round it over a bit and I can still see some sharp lines uh where the handle goes into the hook and I'll round those over a bit also okay we are certainly in the home stretch and things are looking good and it's back to the 220 paper to go over everything that we just reshaped with the higher grit we're going to smooth it out in preparation for our final step which will be to oil this spoon and in doing so we want to keep in mind that you're going to use this spoon with food so we want to use a food safe product and there are few to choose from the spoon will naturally get seasoned as you use it we'll pick up oils from the broths and soups and foods that you use it with and it it'll become seasoned like a an old cast iron skillet becomes seasoned but right now after we get it nice and smooth we're going to go to an oil to seal this wood and I'm going to use mineral oil okay this is looking pretty good and I'm going to continue smoothing out some of the very fine imperfections that I can still see and that gives you about two more minutes left before we get to the oil stage you can take a bathroom break or you can just watch and enjoy the final steps as we create a beautiful graceful spoon this is where we get to enjoy the fruit of our Labor uh we started with a block of wood and we've come to this and and this is a lot of fun and it feels good we can enjoy what we've created and I'll have the pleasure of gifting this spoon to a chef who I know will appreciate using it to me that's what it's all about we've created a beautiful and graceful spoon and yes it's Slender and thin but I think it's strong and it's going to hold up what do you think now as I get ready to move on to the final step oiling the spoon of course after all the work is done a friend shows up maybe my supervisor maybe the spoon inspector someone to make sure that we've done a good job this was so much fun I'm sad that it's over All That Remains now is to rub this oil along the length and breadth of the spoon front and back give it a good seal and you can do this let it dry overnight and do it again but I don't find it necessary with mineral oil on ash it soaks in nicely and again remember this spoon will be seasoned as it is used by the natural oils and greases that are in the foods that you use it with Nature's Beauty in the grain has given us a very nice spoon I hope you appreciate it I hope you are confident enough to try this on your own remember whatever you want to do that's what matters it's your spoon and it matters that you enjoy making it we've worked with the grain that nature gave us and it gave us a beautiful spoon indeed that's very very nice this will make a fine gift thank you for watching

Channel: Tom Ford

Views: 268,242

Keywords: woodcraft, woodworking, hand carved, wooden spoons, diy, diy gifts, wood working skills, ritual woodcraft, wood working tools, hand tools, wood working tips, wood working porn, wooden decor, wood is good, wooden art, wood grain, greenwood, woodworker, master craftsman, craftsman, mission style, tom ford, tom4ed, wood design, wood bowl, cats

Id: ESYlhXQNYOE

Length: 40min 20sec (2420 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 10 2016