When Spoons Go Bad

Okay, so spoons don't really go bad.  But kids banging spoons into the edges of pots will make your spoon look and feel less than perfect.  This poor guy pictured below got battered into the sharp edge of a pot.  Look closely and you can see the wound on the edge.

 

So I had to sand the edge of the spoon off to get rid of the split area.  To keep the spoon symmetrical, I had to take the entire edge off.  Here is what it looks like now. 

 

 

 

It is much smaller now.  You can see where the spoon retains it patina from long use, except for the newly exposed light areas.  I sanded it very smooth and oiled it with mineral oil. 

 

By the way, the sawdust smelled really good.  Like delicious Mexican food.

My attempt at bending wood

I decided to try bending wood.  So, I got a piece of maple.  It is a 1 by 2, so it is 3/4 inch by 1 1/12 inch.  I cut a piece about 10 inches or so.  Then I soaked it in water for a week. 

 

Then I built my form.  I want to bend it into a good shape for spoons.  Here is my set up (ignore the bent piece of wood at the top for now).  

 

That is just three pieces of plywood cut to shape and screwed together.  There are 4 screws on the other side.

After the wood soaked for a week, I microwaved it for 2 1/2 minutes.  Then I clamped it on to the form.  It is fun watching a piece of maple bend.

I left it to cool and dry for a week.  Here is the result:

The top two photos show the cracking on the back of the bend.  I don't know what to do to prevent that.  The wood was very waterlogged and very hot, so it has to be a problem with the wood just being too thick.  The good news is that the cracking only extends down less than a 1/4 inch, so I could still use the piece for a spoon.  I think.

The bottom photo shows the crack at the top of the piece.  This happened because I didn't have a piece of wood between the clamp on the top and the wood.  If I did, it would prevent that crack and the circular impression from the clamp that you can see in the second photo of the post.

So, I will definitely try this again.  Next time I will put some scrap wood between the wood and the clamps to prevent marking and to distribute the pressure more evenly.  And when I do, I will post photos of it here. 

a couple of butter spreaders

After Laughter posted pictures of butter spreaders, I got obsessed with them.  Here are the first that I am willing to share publicly.  The small one on top is maple.  The larger one on the bottom is sycamore from my back yard.  The grain on that it gorgeous, so I had to show you both sides.

As for Laughter's thoughts about creating, let me say that his 3-part division of hobbies is brilliant.  He needs to explain it more, the way he explained it to me a little while ago.

Creation, Experience, and Consumption

I think a fair bit about how I spend my discretionary time. Mostly, it is with some measure of despair and self-loathing, as I fear that time could be better spent. It is after all, the only truly finite resource we have. So, these things we call hobbies take a greater importance in the whole of our lives than the word usually calls to mind. It may seem silly to make kitchen utensils, when it consumes so much of a precious resource and leaves so little to show. But, I think it fills a place that needs to be filled for every person. The need to create. To organize or shape something into something new, different, useful, beautiful. That divine urge is in us all, and squelching it, or belittling it, kills something divine within us. How much easier it seems to have a hobby that is consumptive. The world does not belittle the person whose hobby is shopping or collecting. Somehow, acquiring the fruits of others' creation is  a normal, reasonable, rational thing to do. But why waste and wear out your life pursuing more when more will not satisfy? Try this, if you have not already. Make something. Then give it away. Paper airplane for a kid. Paper hat for a kid. A hot pad. A quilt. A spoon. It is not just fun- you are doing something that you were born to do. You are creating. Be a creator.

They are not for spanking the spread.

These are butter paddles. Wille included them in the book, so I made some out of fresh birch. A very satisfying little project, and they turn out to be really useful. In a why-have-I-never-seen-one-of-these-before sort of way. Seriously, you will not use a table knife for butter again unless forced to. One caution: you *may* start putting more butter on your bread.

A simple bookshelf

So, with little brother moving out, the older boys moved into their own room.  Like all other members of the family, they have plenty of books.  So I needed to build a bookshelf.  This very simple one took about two hours to make. 

the front view

a side view - see how the shelves slant slightly to the back.

the final product in its current home.  This is also the cleanest place in the room.

Swedish dough bowl

You know how the last 5% of a project takes 90% of the time? At least for me. I finally sanded the dough bowl and got some Linseed oil on it. Enjoy the high quality pictures.

Two itty fitties

These were fast and fun.  Just cut them out of nice pine on the scroll saw then carved them a little with my x-acto knife and chisels.  I am going to paint them some bright pretty colors.

Wise words from Wille

"At one time, the kitchen was the room that was kept the warmest, and it was there that people spent the most time, making and repairing things.  The women carded wool, spun yarn, wove and knitted.  The men made utensils and other implements for the household and the farm.  For the most part, this sort of close, familial productivity is a thing of the past.  Because of the modern, sterile and well-polished standards of today's homes, making dust and shavings or putting a chopping block in the middle of the floor is not acceptable.  Woodworkers are not allowed to practice their craft in the house, only in the garage or basement.
Those who work with fiber and fabric are allowed to practice their craft in the home and to enjoy the company of others at the same time.  Why shouldn't the woodworker who carves be able (to) pursue his interest likewise?  To use a knife and ax, you don't need a special place to house yourself.  The ax requires a chopping block, but it doesn't take much room.  Why not carve on the living-room sofa?  I do that often.  I also feel that carvers should be able to take their work with them when they visit friends or sit in public places.  I even carve when I am traveling on the train."
-Wille Sundqvist

I was happy to learn from this that making wood shavings inside is more than something I enjoy, it is my heritage.  My gratitude to this wise Swede.

You should read this book.

Swedish Carving Techniques by Wille Sundqvist.  The book is out of print, and copies for sale on Amazon are incredibly expensive, but through the magic of interlibrary loan, I have a copy for a few weeks.  I understand why so many people have recommended it.  He covers tools, techniques, materials, and the writing is really enjoyable to read.  There is a video that his son Jogge recorded that is a companion to the book, and it (the DVD) is available from Amazon.  There is more to be said about this, and I have some spoons and a bowl that I am working on, so I will follow this with pictures.

A finished bench

A couple years ago, I bought an old door with plans to turn it into a bench. I can now say that the door has become a bench and the thing is finished. It is finished, but not done. I stained it and put polyurethane on it, but I still need to upholster the seat. The pictures do not look nearly as good as the actual bench.

From Oliver Cowdery

I was just reading about the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood, and came across Oliver Cowdery's description of John the Baptist's visit. Part of what he wrote really struck me, especially when thinking of current world conditions.
"Man may deceive his fellow man; deception may follow deception, and the children of the wicked one may have power to seduce the foolish and untaught, till naught but fiction feeds the many, and the fruit of falsehood carries in its current the giddy to the grave, but one touch with the finger of his love, yes, one ray of glory from the upper world, or one word from the mouth of the Savior, from the bosom of eternity, strikes it all into insignificance, and blots it forever from the mind!"

About that Ironwood...

This is how I used the smaller piece of the ironwood that I showed earlier. It is just finished up, and has one coat of linseed oil so far.

Desert Ironwood

The most exciting gift I got for Christmas is some Desert Ironwood. My cousin located some on private land, and with the blessing of the property owner, we harvested some off a big, gnarly, uprooted old trunk of tree. Harvested sounds so professional. In reality, we busted chunks off with an axe and a trailer hitch. Hey, it is what we had on hand. Since we were both there on vacation, the tool scrounging continued as we broke it down into luggage sized pieces. I opted for a hacksaw, not wishing to destroy the nicer saws that we had access to. We did break one blade, but it was overall not too bad. Sectioning it at home, I have the benefit of a good vise on a stable workbench, so cutting is much easier. I still used a coarse hacksaw blade, because I prefer being able to throw away dull blades to sharpening them. With wood this hard, blades dull quickly. These pictures show outside and inside, with cut surfaces cleaned up with a rasp, and wetted to show the grain better.

Just look at the handles

It is a teensy bit embarrassing to see how much attention I have been giving to knives lately. I guess I have a tendency to obsess over one thing at a time. Here are another couple of knives- one made from a kit and the other from scraps of wood and metal.
This is the kit knife. The handle is made of Dymondwood- a laminated, resin impregnated wood veneer product. I do not recall the species of wood it is (supposed to be). A great material for a knife handle, because it is stable and moisture resistant, and it doesn't look bad. I put some butcher block oil on it to make it shine, even though finishing it is not necessary.
This little guy started out as a really cheap backsaw from Home Depot. I did not have very high hopes for this, I mostly just wanted to try making a knife from scratch. I cut the metal with a cold chisel and shaped the blade with a bench grinder and sandpaper. The handle is a scrap of black walnut, and the brass pins are not pins at all, but brass machine screws. I made it and tried it out in the kitchen, and it works like a champ. As a reward for faithful service, I finally finished it with (you guessed it) butcher block oil.

Mostly concerning the wood

My problem hasn't been that I haven't had any projects going, it is that they weren't strictly about wood. This photo is of a knife that I rehandled with hickory. The wood is from a sledgehammer handle. It is beautifully tough and not bad to look at, either. I finished it with butcher block oil until it shines.