There is more than one way to carve a spoon, as Ben Law explains

Materials you will need
- A length of roundwood long enough for your desired spoon. Suitable species are sycamore, birch, maple, cherry, lime, rowan and alder. Many species can be used for spoon carving but it is best to avoid woods with a high tannin content if they are to be used for culinary purposes.
- Olive or walnut oil
Recommended tools
- Pocket carving knife
- Bent carving knife (hooked knife) • Curved gouge
- Minijarn gouge
At a basic level, all you need is a small pocket knife, an off-cut from a branch in the garden and a bit of imagination and you can whittle away until you have a spoon. There is a wide range of spoon-carving styles with specialist designs, shapes and patterns. Here I will look at a couple of techniques. One involves using a pole lathe to turn a spoon blank and the other looks at the more free-form technique of working from
a small log or from a curved branch, often referred to as the Swedish style.
To Make a Spoon Using a Pole Lathe
First, choose the length of wood for the spoon, split the log in two and rough it out using a small side axe. Once the blank is shaped enough to work on the pole lathe, turn the wood until it resembles (1). Use a small froe to split the blank in half (2). You will now have two spoon blanks ready to work using hand tools (3). Use a carving knife and a bent carving knife for the bowl. As the shape is already defined by the work of the pole lathe, it is possible to make a regular set of spoons this way if desired. To finish the spoons, lightly sand them and use olive or walnut oil (4). Another technique using the pole lathe involves turning the handle on the lathe and the outline of the bowl before finishing the bowl by hand.





To Make a Free-Form Spoon
Making spoons without using the pole lathe allows the whittler a freedom to go with the spoon as it evolves. This results in a varied selection of shapes of handles and bowls. It is important to look at the grain pattern within the wood before beginning carving, seeing the spoon within the tree.
A curved branch will allow for the bowl and handle of the spoon while going with the grain and keeping the strength integral to the spoon (1). It is possible to make spoons with narrower handles this way as the neck of the spoon will be stronger than a turned spoon.
Another approach is to mark the profile on the wood before you start whittling. Both face and edge profiles can be marked (2), (3). Another approach for roughing out the spoon bowl is to clamp the wood and gouge out the bowl before cutting out the blank. The spoon can then be finished with hand tools (4).
Split the log in two using a froe and then rough out the blank using a side axe (5). Stop cuts can be made with a saw to make sure you do not cut away the material saved for the bowl when you are chopping out surplus wood. Once you have a roughed-out blank, you can either draw the profile of the spoon on to the blank or just go with your intuition – you may end up with a spoon you could never have drawn.




I have a spoon-whittling pouch that contains a gouge, carving knife, hooked knife (right-handed) and minijarn gouge (6). I use the carving knife to shape the handle and outside of the bowl and the hooked knife to work on the inside. These come in right or left-handed versions and a double-sided version, although I am not keen on this as I like to press with my thumb on the opposite side of the hooked knife to the edge.
I also use a minijarn gouge. This is made by the Swedish blacksmith Hans Karlsson and, like all of his tools, is of the finest quality. The gouge allows you to curve deep into the spoon bowl. Finish by careful gouging (this takes practice) or by sanding, working up to a very fine sandpaper or else the spoon will have a ‘fluffed’ finish. Finally apply a food-based oil such as walnut.





Woodland Craft
By Ben Law
ISBN: 978-1-86108-936-6 Published by GMC Publications PRICE: £25
Available from www.giftstome.co.uk