Calm Carving | A Cooking Spoon Made Slowly From a Log Using Four Hand Tools

Hello everyone, In this episode of Calm Carving, I slow down completely and make a lovely ribbony cooking spoon from a tough, but beautiful round of beech wood. After a complicated and rather tiring huge ladle last time, I wanted to connect with a simple but sweet and artistic version of a cooking spoon. I used just four hand tools, The axe, the saw, the knife and the spoon knife. The log was fairly fresh, felled a moth or two ago and has been sat outside my workshop since. I have tried to carve some cups from it, but the interlocking grain of beech makes it a little tough on the hands to efficiently hollow. Spoons it must be! The wood split nicely and although the pith echoed remnants of a twist and a change in the grain, the overall billet used was fairly straight. I loved tucking in with the axe and creating a lovely crank before taking the time to draw the organic shape with a cuppa. I have been drawn to this tulip shape for some time now and I really like how the bowl's lean, or angle might aid my hand when in use. I then roughed out the form with the axe and made some stop cuts with the silky saw before returning to the axe to make what is know as a blank, a crude, 90% finalised form to take to the knife. I gave my slöjd knife a quick hewn and set to work.It always has intrigued me in which order different makers interrogate a spoon blank with their hand tools. Some start by hollowing the bowl with a spoon knife, others like myself make satisfying shavings to begin the forming of the handle. I like to have the handle pretty much finalised before I begin to blend it with the bowl. I have been drawn to this flow-like ribbon handle shape recently and I just can't seem to get enough of the beautiful shavings that spiral from the knife. It's just so satisfying and I can get lost for hours in the process. I then hollowed the spoon bowl with my Svante Djarv spoon knife hollow, a new and really effective knife from the wonderful svante. and then I added some finishing cuts before lastly chamfering the sharper edges. Overall, I am really happy with this lovely cooking spoon. I may make a small batch of these for folk to purchase form my website. I hope you like it! As always, thank you for your wonderful support, the wonderful comments, subscribers and contractive feedback. Take care all. Tools used: Axe: James Wood - Socketed Axe Head (handled badly by me) Knife: Nic Westermann - Sloyd Blade (handled fairly well by me) Hook Knife: Svante Djarv - Spoon Knife Hollow Saw: Silky Gomboy 240 Chapters: 00:06 Sawing and Splitting 00:52 Initial Axe Work 01:48 Forming The Crank 02:50 Drawing The Design 03:12 Rough Axe Work 04:14 Sawing Stop Cuts 06:30 Initial Knife Work 10:51 Hook Knife Hollowing 12:49 Fine Knife Work 14:18 The Finished Spoon 14:59 Project Debrief - Thank You