Monday, February 14, 2011

Better axe and new spoons

I have seen people using axes to rough out spoons etc, they made the blanks faster and neater than I could, why? 

The answer is that there are axes and there are axes.... ie the old axe that I found in a shed or the Gransfors Bruks (GB) Swedish carving axe.

Having tried the GB axe the difference in use is huge, the extra weight carries the axe theough the wood. The design of the axe means that it is easy to see the cut as it is being made. The cutting edge is very sharp and can almost be pushed through the wood while making fine slices. luckily my birthay was close and a friend had a GB axe for sale add the the two together and I had a wonderful new axe.




So what to do with it, spoons I guess. A "windfall" of Birch meant I could head for the shed. A few days later I have new spoons ready to be oiled.






A pair of spoons for my wife and daughter carved from Holly 



 

First carved spoon

While walking the dog I acquired a branch from a birch tree that was being felled because it was unsafe and leaning over a road.

So the time had come to carve my own spoon. I roughed it out with an old hand axe. Then I started to carve, it soon looked so bad I almost gave up. But by lunch time I had finished carving... almost. The bowl is hard to carve with a normal knife, I asked a fellow canoeist what he used and he lent me a spoon knife and I soon had a spoon :-)




 the spoon is 9" long

Of course it looks less than great to me now but it was a huge amount of fun to make and I am hooked.