By the light of the silvery moon...

Wooden spoons are a great little project, especially if you have more desire to do something than time or space to do it. These are a batch of spoons I made for Christmas a couple years back. They are made of Walnut, Cherry, Maple, Poplar, and a couple from Ash.

Thoughts on materials: I made all of these out of 3/4 inch thick lumber. Maple is by far the best. It is hard to carve, but the tight smooth grain gives the best finish and the utensils don't get dinged up as fast. Cherry and Walnut both made some nice looking spoons. They are softer than the Maple, so the work went a lot faster, but they do ding up faster. Poplar is the least expensive choice. It is also pretty soft, but has a nice smooth, tight grain. It works fast and looks okay at the end. I tried Ash just because I had some. I won't waste my time with it again. Hard, brittle, splinters like crazy, and huge open grain. Good for baseball bats, not good for spoons.

Tools- The first few spoons I made with nothing more than a pocketknife and sandpaper. It was slow going. When I decided to make a bunch, I bought a carving gouge and a set of swedish carving knives. I have not used the pocket knife since. I cut out all the blanks with a coping saw.

The best part of the project was giving them away, but I had a lot of satisfaction sitting in front of the TV with a box to catch wood chips and just whittling away (include vacuum cleaner on your tools list if doing this).