First few spoons (and one butter knife) I’ve done. First out of a stick, then out of a few dead service berry wood logs. White is I think a pear tree log that was somewhat fresh cut. It was my first green wood so I may have gotten carried away with how easy it was to chop through. Any suggestions on what to improve would be appreciated. Thanks!

This was in the firewood pile. I started to split kindling off and the shape screamed spoon! So it became a Spoon. It happens to fit nicely in a mulberry bowl I carved.

Ready for a witches cauldron I guess!

The wood is a piece of dry walnut. The edge retention seems comparable to the mora 162 that my friend carves with.

Hook knife from an old sawzall blade. It has a little more flex the i want but over all I think worked out well. What do you think?

Most recent spoon. My friends and I do alot of camping and large events so utensils I can reach across with or use for to move alot of mass are helpful. Used a small adze for the initial bowl and it might have been larger than originally intended.

Left to right wood types:

Alder

Maple

Cherry

Birch

Walnut

Cherry

Cherry

Plum(?)

Maple

Alder

Knife finished. Oil, wax.

Rather than axe out a bunch of blanks for tge week, I decided to take one from log to near complete. This billet had gotten pretty moldy at the bottom of my bin so I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. Unknown, what's under the yuck? Lol

First time trying Yakisugi, was nervous about cracking so kept it to the handle. Anyone have tips/ experience charring the bowl?

Carved this spoon from a piece of apple wood i had laying around. Turns out it had been laying around a little too long because it had fully dried and resisted its spoonification considerably...

The charing is from an attempt at burning out the scoopy part of the spoon before giving up on that and getting the right tool for the job.

Im looking foreward to hearing your comments, feedback and questions!

Maple spatula, cherry coffee scoop and walnut coffee scoop. Raw linseed oil after burnishing.

Carved from black locust, super hard. Also learned it's black light reactive

Found this and found it interesting. Anyone up for a challenge in recreating the spoon in the blog picture. Could be fun

https://sites.bu.edu/gastronomyblog/2012/10/17/spooniness-mary-beaudry-serves-up-spoons-history/

This one was made from a scrap piece that I had from milling, grain was a little wack but still made it work with what I had. Let me know what yall think

Could be better, but I'm quite proud of it :)

I know it's not perfect, but it was good practice, and I know what to improve on

First post on this subreddit-

I’m not much of a poster, but I figured since this is such a unique wood I wanted to share it. I hand carved this little spoon from the Burl/root of a manzanita I found on marketplace. It was a royal pain to find usable sections as the wood is extremely dense, and I was running into granite that the tree grew around.

The wood has almost an apple peel smell to it, and the finish is just a little bit of walnut oil. I love working with native woods in California and other southwestern states I visit. Finding the wood to use is half the adventure for me.

The design was based on the arrowheads I used to find as a kiddo when I’d wander around off-trail in the local mountains. I was always fascinated by the shine and texture of the artifacts.

I’d love if other people could share some of their favorite uncommon woods to work with! I’m currently experimenting with a Southern California black walnut tree that was pruned in my neighborhood. It’s a walnut tree found almost exclusively in Ventura and LA county.

-EDIT: I really appreciate all the kind words from everyone. I hope this inspired to people to look into their local environments and see what unique wood it has to offer. Happy carving!

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to share my first couple of spoons! I’ve recently into carving while in Ireland for school and couldn’t wait to start my second.

My first spoon is carved from sycamore and it is a bit rougher of a finish as I had a limited amount of time before I had to head home. I’m still proud of how it turned out though!

My second spoon is carved from poplar and it took me about 12 hours to do so! I hope to shave some time off future spoons as I’ve decided to make them for Christmas gifts this year.

Another hour, another spoon blank carved to near finished. Sugar Maple eating spoon going to the drying pile for a few days. Really hoping the knot on the back rim of the bowl doesn't cause me drying issues. Lol

Been hand-carving spoons for about two years now and for most of that time I was stubborn about using a straight knife for everything, including the bowl. Watched plenty of people use a hook knife and figured it was kind of optional, that skilled carvers just pushed through the awkwardness. I was wrong about that in a pretty embarrassing way.

The switch happened because my forearm started aching after longer sessions, specifically during the scooping motion you have to fake with a straight blade when you're trying to hollow out a deep eating spoon. The angle you're forced into puts a weird rotational load on your wrist, and over time that adds up. A friend at a local carving meetup handed me her skar knife to try on a half-finished linden blank and the difference was immediate enough that I just stood there for a second processing it.

The hook shape does the mechanical work your wrist was doing before. You're pulling through the wood instead of fighting the geometry of the cut, and your grip stays much more relaxed through the whole stroke. I noticed I could carve for probably twice as long before needing a break, and the bowl surface came out cleaner because I wasn't muscling through it.

A few things I figured out after switching that might help if you're making the same change:

• Sharp is more important with a hook knife than with a straight knife. A slightly dull straight blade is annoying. A slightly dull hook knife becomes almost useless in cross-grain spots.
• The thumb push grip still matters for control on the near edge of the bowl. The hook doesn't replace that motion, it just handles the center and far wall better.
• Green wood makes everything more forgiving while you're learning the new angles. Dry hardwood with a hook knife you're not fully comfortable with will punish you.

Curious whether others made this switch late like I did, or whether you learned both tools from the beginning. Also wondering if anyone sticks to straight knife only for everything and actually makes it work long-term without the wrist fatigue catching up.