Original article from Sylva Spoon. Lots of folks that enjoy carving don’t seem to enjoy sharpening quite so much. I kind of understand that. These folks are interested in carving, not sharpening. Blunt tools are an unfortunate byproduct of carving. And sharpening is a chore to be endured. That’s completely the wrong mindset. And I’m …
Once we have carved our spoon and we want to use it, it is important to apply some finishing to protect the wood. A good wax and oil based finish will help extend the life of our hand-carved utensils. In this post we will learn how to make our own natural finish with beeswax and …
For Spoon Carving we can use different types of wood but they are generally light colored woods. Although there are naturally dark woods like Black Walnut. In this article you will learn how to Ebonize or naturally darken the wood. The first method of Ebonizing consists of using Iron Acetate that reacts with the tannins …
When we work with green wood we must always take into account the drying process because cracks appear when the wood dries uncontrollably fast. In this article we will see how and why we should properly store green wood. Cracks happen when the wood looses its moisture rapidly and therefore irregularly. If its fibers are …
In this article we will see some decorative techniques for wooden spoons. Kolrosing Kolrosing works like a tattoo and it consists of making a cut with the tip of our straight knife or another type of knife over the lines of the desired drawing. Then using some ground coffee or cinnamon, it gets rubbed into …
Safety in Spoon Carving Before starting, remember that you are using sharp tools which can cause harm to ourselves or others if we do not take the necessary precautions. In this article we will see the main safety instructions for practicing Spoon Carving. The Axe The axe, just because of its weight, can be very …
Keeping your tools sharp is as important as a good carving technique. Using dull tools will make our job harder and unsafe. In this article you will learn the basic concepts of sharpening for spoon carving tools. It’s advisable to sharpen all the tools yourself and take the time to learn to do it for …
The Hook Knife is the tool we use to carve concave sections of our spoon, in this case the bowl although it can be used to hollow out other concave areas of the spoon. The Hook Knife curvature can be simple of compound, you can find them in different geometries. In the next video we …
The straight knife is the main tool for Spoon Carving. Once we have removed as much wood as possible using the axe, we move on to the straight knife. The straight knife is also knows as Sloyd (Slöjd) knife. This term means craft or handwork in Swedish and comes from a movement in the Scandinavian …
Once we have a branch or a log we can use the carving axe to split it, being guided by the direction of the grain of the wood. In the next video you can see different ways to do that: Depending on our skill with the axe we will be able to remove as much …
