Spoon Carving in Maine

I've been wanting to try my hand at carving a spoon for quite a while now. Both daughters carved beautiful spoons at their Waldorf school but I had never tried it. Elizabeth and I started to do it one weekend this winter but we didn't finish so I decided that while I was on vacation in Maine, I'd finally give it a try. I had a lot of fun doing it and now I'm hooked!

I started with a pine branch that had been cut about a year ago. I think it was about 1.5"-2" in diameter. When I was cutting the branch, it split in half which was really handy, as you can see.

First, I took off all the bark and the stubs of branches.

Then I started to rough out the shape with my larger knife. At this point, it's really more whittling than carving but it's still fun. BTW, I don't know if this Opinel knife is the "right" tool, but it felt good in my hand and was the sharpest pocket knife I had at home so I figured I'd use it.

I used some carvers tape to protect my right hand and wore a leather work glove on my left since that's the hand I used to hold the wood. My knives were moderately sharp, so the blades were doing most of the work but as I got further along on my second spoon, they were dulling just enough that I was worried about a slip. Luckily, nothing happened but did I ever learn: use really, really sharp knives to be safe. Counter-intuitive, I know, but true.

For Christmas last year, Sarah gave me a hook knife which is a knife with a curved blade for hollowing out spoons. It was very handy.

You can see the hook knife in this picture.

The knife on the right is a regular detail carving knife which I switched to after I had roughed it out with my big blade.

This is what the spoon looked like before I started sanding. I tried to get as many knife marks off as I could but that's a lot like plastering a wall: the art is knowing when to stop.

I started with 100 grit sand paper and then switched to 220 after a while. I think I probably sanded for about an hour total, maybe a bit more. I just sat on the rocks in the sun with my dog and sanded away so I kind of lost track of time. It was very soothing.

I made two spoons. The first one is on the right and the second one is on the left. (I consider the one on the right a rough draft.) When I felt like they were smooth enough, I used Beekeepers Gold on them. That's a mix of bee's wax and mineral oil. I applied it with my hands to rub it in really well and wiped off the excess. I think each spoon got 2 or 3 coats.

I'm really happy with how they came out and I'm looking forward to making a bunch more now that I know a bit more about what I'm doing.