Seasons Greetings

Festive greetings to you all - and whatever you celebrate - let it be merry !

and

all the very best for the New Year, may it bring you new learnings, techniques, people and fun into your life.

My friend Jon Mac

Jon works only with 3 types of tool. Axe, knife and hook knife.
He now owns a set which he has helped design (apart from the hook knife) which are made by skilled craftsmen in this country.
Today Milo and I had the pleasure of spending most of the day with him and a visiting friend Haily. With new tools for me to have a play with, spoons had to be made. Milo got much love from Haily which meant she did not get much carving done.

I think this is the first time I have used an axe made in this country that is not older than 60 plus years. Eye candy it may be, but it also performs. Well done Nic Westermann a lovely tool indeed. A mild steel body with a silver steel edge. I like the rounded edges on the poll so that it can fit in comfortably in the hand, great for shaving cuts.

The other tool was made by Chris Grant, the MiniMaC, little brother to the MaChris a bushcrafter/carver. Lovely knife made from ball bearing steel, I am actually getting to like the handle on it. Some of you may know that I like thinner handles.

The hook is a Nic Westermann, called the finishing knife, and is throughly recommeded if you do not mind putting your own handle on knives. The way that Jon uses this knife is outstanding. I can match Jon's technical level but not his power.

 This is no small kuksa and it only seamed minutes later that he had roughed it out. It helps that Jon is a big man with big hands. There is no way that I would do this myself, I do not like hurting hands. I would get the adze out, and even vice it up and use 2 handed tools to do this with.

 The nearly finished item ready for final shaping.

Axe mask

If you do not work leather then making an axe mask may be a bit of a challenge. Why not make one from wood instead and practise you morticing skills as well.

They work really well and most of my axes have wooden masks. The band is inner tube from car or lorry wheels. and these can be easily picked up free from anywhere that changes tyres. Maybe not the most beautiful of items, and I am sure that some of you will come up with more elegant solutions.

Morticing by hand is easy and it does not need to take very long.

So send examples to me that you have made and I will post them up here.

Spoonfest part 2. Two spoons by great makers

I bought 2 spoons  at Spoonfest. There are design aspects of these spoons that I love, both are great spoons and fulfil their function perfectly, and they look good too. I often find that if something performs its function well, it often looks good.

It was great to meet and spend time with both these craftsmen. The first is Jarrod from the USA and his is a small, in fact very small eating spoon, made quickly with a milk paint handle.

 The knife work can be easily seen, there is no messing around here. Facets or large knife cuts left on spoons can work really well, but you need to have confidence in your carving and more importunely experience. I have seen so many spoons where large cuts do not work and a spoon just looks unfinished.

 One of the things I love about Jarrods spoon is the handle crank. Turn a spoon over and lay it on a flat surface you can see it clearly. Try it with your spoons. I carved a number of spoons copying this shape and I was really surprised about just how deep I had to carve.

Look at how the spoon tapers towards the end of the bowl. It gets thin, really thin and this fits into the mouth just right, a real pleasure to eat off.

So this is one I made, it is a bit more solid than Jarrods, and with a longer handle.

I do notice that I tend to spend more time finishing my spoons, I cannot help it, I enjoy it too much.

The other spoon I bought was made by a Swedish craftsman Fritiof Runhall who makes some of the most beautiful and creative spoons I have ever seen.

Made from a crooked branch, a finely knife finished spoon with a handle with a forward curve in that is just so sweet. The way it fits in the hand is perfect.

Fritiof has a trade mark which is clearly seen on the inside of the bowl, this is not easy to achieve. He often carves finials on the ends of the spoons.

Again have a look at the bowl shape especially at the tip.

I have been carving hearts at the end of mine. What I love about spoons is their infinite 3 dimensional shapes, they are hand held sculptural forms and you can go on forever with all the possible variations.

 To finish off this post, a couple more Fritiof spoons, photos taken in the Spoonfest gallery.

Next post I hope to add the photos I took at the gallery which include Stuart Kings spoon collection.

Spoonfest, part 1

Those of you who could not attend, here is some good news for you: it rained. Well. a few showers. The workshops were over subscribed, but more were put on to motivate this to some extent.
All tools had to be put away at 7pm, when the bar opened.
Not very good phone signals.
The grass was the wrong shade of green.

Well, you missed the best green wood event ever! Tough! Learn your lesson and buy a ticket for next year! We all loved it.
I was there teaching. I did not manage to book onto any workshops myself and would have loved to have done quite a few. I can safely say that we all learned, we were all inspired. Spoon making in the UK has now significantly improved, both in its teaching and in its practise.

Spoonshop,  Spoons, a few tools and teeshirts.

All ages made spoons. Great to see the next generation start early

I taught how to axe out scoops and ladles from straight wood. This is a form of extreme spoon making as it can be easy to have too much short grain and snap your scoop. What I hoped to do, by pushing the wood to its limits, was to inform people about that all important crank in spoons. After axing out such extreme cranks, then making eating or serving spoons becomes childs play. I was asked, and hope to, in the winter, to do a video tutorial on making a small scoop. 

A few people from one of my classes

What I loved about Spoonfest was that beginners, men, woman, boys and girls all got stuck in.

Here is a short video, mainly of Barn and Robin opening Spoonfest.

I have taken lots of photos of spoons, and I even bought a couple. Next post, I hope to talk about the various design aspects of these spoons and what about them really 'floats my boat'. This all may take some time, as I have been travelling around a lot. Just off the the APF and then down to the Weald Wood Fair a week after.