Design your own spoon

Before designing a spoon we must think about its function. What types of spoon are there? What are their differences? The shape of a spoon is mainly determined by its function. In this article we will see some basic concepts to design a spoon to carve.

If we analyze the spoons found in our home, we will understand the reason for their shapes and sizes, let’s see some of them:

The most common spoon is an eating spoon. The size of its bowl is defined by the size of our mouth and the shape of its handle by the way it should be held to eat. The handle is thin and long enough so its supported by our hand.

The eating spoon has a slight curvature or “crank” which makes it easier to scoop out the food from the plate.

Same thing with the soup spoon, it has a more pronounced crank so it can go in a much deeper container.

Another commonly found spoon in our kitchen is the cooking spoon, unlike the eating spoon, the bowl doesn’t need to fit in out mouths completely so it can be bigger. It has a long, flat handle so we can keep our hands away from the heat of the pan or pot.

Similar to the cooking spoon is the serving spoon, it also has a long handle but its bowl is much deeper so it can hold a whole serving of food. It can also have a slight cranked profile to facilitate the scooping.

We can also find measuring spoons. In this case, the size of the bowl will depend on the ingredient to measure and we can calculate it’s size and geometry by the ingredient’s volume.

These types of spoon could have smaller handles, to be held using only our index finger and thumb. Depending on the container and characteristics of the food it’s intended to measure.

Of course there are more types of spoons, like tiny sugar spoons, dessert spoons, ladles, scoops…

But we can also design a spoon that serves no specific function and have it be completely decorative.

As you can see, there aren’t really any absolutely definitive measures or standards. The shape of the spoon must serve its function, which we must analyze to determine the size and proportions of our own design. Always considering the material we are using: The Wood. Its structure and its anatomy will also determine what shapes are possible. You can read more about this subject in: The design and the grain

It’s important to foresee that for this type of spoon carving, we need to be able to hold the piece of wood while we manipulate the tools which will also limit the size of our spoon design.

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