Kitchen Utensils

[WoodWhittlinWayne]

So... I finally got around to asking the wife to take some pics of my kitchen utensils that I have been carving. Her hobby is photography so I figured she was the expert between the two of us . I am working on replacing all of our plastic kitchen utensils with wooden ones. The first two pics are of mixing spoons. They have shallow bowls and are great for mixing things, but not so good for scooping. The 3rd and 4th pics are of a spatula (or as the wife calls it "a flipper"). I had a great time carving that one. Don't know if you can tell in the pic, but the grain got a little crazy down on the flipper part and was very challenging. The last pic is of a couple of spoons that I carved with deeper bowls for scooping. The one on the right is carved out of mahogany. All the other utensils are carved out of poplar. I'm not a big fan of the last two spoons. I think they look too blocky. Seems I am afraid of taking off too much wood...

These are some of my first real attempts at carvings so criticism/advice is welcome!

[WoodWhittlinWayne]

Here is a side view of the 2 scooping spoons. You can really see the "blockyness" that I don't like in this pic.

[Magicman]

Wayne
I think you have done a great job with your spoons, they look well sanded and they have a nice finish as shown by the shine on them. What did you use for finish?
Larry

[Bob K.]

Very nicely done on all of them Wayne!

[carver6]

Who said a spoon has to be oval or "spoon shaped"? The object is to move food or whatever from one container to another. They look fine to me. Just keep on keepin' on. You're doin' fine. Good work and very nice looking.
Garon

[Robson Valley]

I like the spatula/flipper, I do a lot of stove-top cooking.
If the blade and handle are sort of parallel to each other, I'm looking for a height difference which puts the blade nearly flat in the pan while the handle clears the edge.

[MackTheKnife]

I know where you're coming from in the "blocky" category, Wayne. My first spoons looked exactly like that, particularly the mahogany one. And the primary reason for that is being afraid to take off too much wood, as you said. Here are some suggestions that helped me a lot with doing spoon bowls:
1. Put a metal spoon of the type you want to carve down on the edge of the counter, squat down and look at the profile in relation to the straight edge of the counter. Try to emulate that profile as best you can keeping in mind the limitations of wood. The poplar scooping spoon is a good start toward that profile.
2. Carve the outside of the bowl first. Finish it. Get it the shape you want, including the transition to the handle. Make it as symmetrical as you can, side to side especially. Now start carving the inside of the bowl.
3. Once you've got a good hollow going, put your thumb on the outside of the bowl and your forefinger on the inside of the bowl, like a pair of calipers. Run your fingers over the entire surface of the bowl. You'll be able to tell where the thick and thin areas of the bowl wall are. This method is surprisingly accurate. If you have some board scraps laying about of varying thicknesses, 1/4", 3/8", 1/8", you can do the same with them to get a pretty good feel for what the different thicknesses feel like. This way you can work over the whole bowl and achieve a pretty consistent wall thickness. Also with this method you can tell which face of the bowl is inconsistent. Often when I get the inside of the bowl to look the way I want it and to have a nice, even slope, I'll still have areas in the wall that are thicker than others. At this point I'll take wood off the outside of the bowl to even things up. Just take those measurements frequently to make sure you don't get the wall too thin.

A lot of folks spend a lot more attention and time on the handle than on the bowl. In my view, this is wrongheaded. The bowl is the most important part of the spoon, because without the bowl, a spoon is just a stick!

[AL...]

They are great looking spoons . Well done
The Advice Bob just gave you is all you need to be making good spoons (Listen to me ye think I know what Im talking about LOL)
Im just learning to make them too and the putting the spoon on the table and looking at the profile is what Bob told me to do last week the diffrence in my spoons are 100% better than they were They used to look real blocky as you put it.
Another idea is to hold the spoon bowl up to a light to make sure you dont go to thin on the bowl when you take to much wood off one part you can see the light come through the spoon.
Keep up the great work Spoons are a lot of fun to make and real additcive to make.

Cheers
AL

[Sharon of the Dell]

I like your spoons and turners!

[Robson Valley]

Don't forget to take a quick look at my Thickness Measuring Tool in the tools forum. Simple, cheap and for those of us with no self confidence in the "pinch method," very accurate.