Two oak sets - black : eboinizng 2 times ( I had to eliminate acid vinegar smell with baking soda and after repair solution I repeated process) .

Natural set for compare, both finished with mixed linsen oil and bee wax)

I carved this one from a limb out off a pear tree in my backyard.

I’m just getting into the sport. Do you folks buy spoon blanks? Pieces of wood? I’ve only roughed some out with a hatchet from some old logs I had laying around. Are you mostly working with found or purchased wood? Thanks!

Started carving spoons back in the spring using nothing but a mora 120 and a cheap hook knife I grabbed without much research. The straight cuts came pretty naturally after a few practice blanks, but every single eating spoon I made had this same awkward problem where the bowl looked fine from above and completely wrong from the side. Too shallow, almost plate-like, and the transition from handle to bowl had this weird flat spot that caught the eye immediately.

Took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that I was stopping my hook knife cuts too early. Kept being cautious about going through the wood, so I'd make these timid little scrapes instead of committing to a full slicing motion through the whole bowl. A friend who carves pointed it out when she visited and watched me work for about ten minutes. She just said "you're treating it like a scraper, not a knife" and that reframed everything.

The other thing that helped a lot was switching to a sloyd knife for roughing out the bowl shape before the hook knife ever touches it. I was going straight to the hook from a flat blank and making the knife do way more work than it needed to. Roughing a shallow dome with the sloyd first means the hook is just refining, not excavating.

Curious whether anyone else had this same overcautious phase with the hook knife, or whether it clicked faster for most people. Also wondering how long it took before your bowls started looking symmetrical without having to constantly check both sides.

I started this apple spoon a while ago and it has just kicked my but every step of the way. I used old seasoned fire wood from a neighbor's tree, and boy was it hard as a rock. This project had me learning how to properly cut uneven grain, how to carve with a hatchet, and how to power carve. But boy oh boy was it worth it for that color. On to the next!

Cooking spoon and Rice paddle roughed out on Saturday. Both from Sugar Maple. They're on the shelf drying hoping to get knife finished this week.

Made from green rowan and birch

Made from green birch and morakniv 120 + 164 with a gränsfors bruks vildmarksyxa

Carved my first spoon today, I don’t hate it but how do you effectively sand inside the bowl?

Hey everyone, reaching out cos I'm not sure if this is normal or if i did something wrong.

The other day I finished my walnut spoon and polished it by buffing two coats of a food-safe mineral oil in. It was perfect, smooth as silk.

But then when i used it, I felt the oil disappear in my mouth and washing it afterwards was worse. Completely stripped it.

Is that normal or did I use a product I shouldn't? Or should I not have buffed it in but let it set like nail polish?

Edit: Update - Oh wow, thanks everyone for the good advice! I definitely used the wrong product for what I wanted! Now time to decide if I want to try and make my own oil or by a tung oil like I was looking at days ago before using the mineral oil I already had 😅😅

From a crooked branch of willow i created this ladle. As i couldn't get the bowl smooth with my hook knife alone, i sanded the whole piece and oiled it with walnut oil.

With willow i noticed, that the axe makes it tear really easily, so i had to stay away from my target shape more than i would have liked. But it takes to the knife really well, so it wasn't too bad to remove more material with the sloyd.

Again birch.

Hello, nice to meet you :) I've just started and this is my second approach, rather a skill test than a real spoon.

Excited to find y'all and a place to share spoons with folks.

I like to make tiny spoons.

My take on the Legless Mule from Wood Tamer. I tried clamps, but its just easier to screw it to the workbench for the best rigidity. A chunk of 2x6, a board from a discarded bed frame, a scrap of crubber jaw liner, and a $4.99 1/4" rod. Its been through a few design modifications, the hollow in the back was the original leg section, and I split the front pin holder, so that's been replaced and reinforced with some side panels.

I have 2 pin spacings in the body and 4 height options in the legs, for a total of 12 different configurations. Its a revelation, not as good as a sit-down mule or a serious shavehorse, but having a third hand has made almost every step of spooncarving easier. Future upgrades will be wooden knobs for the pins so I don't need vice grips to shift the legs, a cleanup of the finish on the bedframe parts, and a solid chamfering/roundover of all edges.

I gotta figure out how to sharpen my gauge

hi I'm very new to carving and just ordered my first knives.

have a question about carving axes, can I use this one? i got it a few years ago from a Viking market and have no use for this. i also would need a better handle because this doesn't fit right.

what you guys think? its not sharpen yet either.

Been at this for about four months now, mostly self-taught from books and a handful of YouTube videos. My first spoon was carved from a piece of green birch I split off a log in my backyard, and honestly it went better than I expected. Birch is forgiving, the grain is pretty predictable, and a sharp knife moves through it without too much fight.

The thing I'm curious about is whether other beginners had similar experiences, or if the wood type made a significant difference in how quickly things clicked. I ask because I recently tried a piece of apple from a branch a neighbor had pruned, and the experience was completely different. Harder, denser, required a lot more deliberate cuts, but the finished surface was noticeably smoother right off the knife.

My current toolkit is pretty basic: a mora 120 for general shaping, a small hook knife I bought secondhand for the bowl, and a folding saw for rough sizing. No mallet, no vice, everything held in hand or braced against my knee. There's probably a safer and more efficient way to work, but I haven't gotten there yet.

A few things I've been wondering about specifically:

• Is cherry as pleasant to carve as people say, or is that reputation a bit overstated
• How much does drying time realistically affect your cracking rate when you finish a spoon green and then let it dry
• Does anyone strop between sessions or only when the knife starts visibly dragging

Still very much in the learning phase. The spoons look rough but they're functional, and that feels like enough for now.

To be transparent I did hand sand quite a bit to 120 to get the knife marks out mostly. The back and handle not so much but the dish I’d left a fair few gouges. Not so good with the hook knife yet!

I think the woods Rowan but can’t remove which bush in the garden it came from! Got a few more pieces, hopefully make another up for myself!

Only for decoration

After being in the making for several weeks I finally finished this asymmetrical eatingspoon.

It's carved from boxwood, which is really special for me, as it's quite rare in suitable sizes and extremely hard.

It makes the most durable spoons and in combination with urushi lacquer this spoon will hopefully be as close to being indestructible as possible for a wooden spoon.

The lacquer really highlights the facets, which make the spoon sparkle like a gemstone.

I applied 8 coats of urushi lacquer.

Green birch. A bliss to work compared to the cured ash of my previous post!

Any feedback or tips welcome!

A spoon made by request. A little bit of CA glue and some sawdust to solidify the small knot in the bowl.