Hand Carved

These are my favorite spoon to make.  Most of my hand carved spoons come from "found wood" or donated wood, usually from prunings or because the tree had been downed during a storm.  They are carved from all sorts of hard woods.  I have spoons made from an Elm tree that died in central Pennsylvania, a plum tree that was cut down for a Frisbee golf course,  a Bradford Pear tree that died in an ice storm, and a Crape Myrtle that just got too big.


The limbs are cut to rough size using a saw into 'blanks.'  Then each blank is split out of the limb using a Froe.  A free hand drawing of the spoon is then drawn on the blank.  From there, the spoon is rough shaped using a hatchet.  When the blank is close to the shape that I am looking for then the fun really starts.  I find a nice place to sit and pull out one of my really sharp carving knives.  I whittle the basic shape of the spoon using mostly a straight bladed knife.  When I'm happy with the shape and have removed the defects from the blank then the bowl of the spoon is hollowed out using a curved knife or hook knife.  Once the bowl is carved, the blank is set aside to dry if the wood is green or fresh.


Once it has sufficiently dried, I finish carving the spoon to the final shape and add details.  Then I hand sand it to the desired smoothness.


The finish is the same as the sanded spoons.  Each are given four coats of mineral oil allowed to dry for several weeks then buffed to a fine lusted using a butcher block conditioner.