Taken me a while to get back to my blog and wanted to start with a quick one about a spoon that I whittled during my Christmas holiday. It’s a big whale (sort-of) spoon whittled out of seasoned sycamore planks.
The sycamore planks were cut by Dad using a portable sawmill a few years ago, so it is perfectly seasoned. Being a hard wood though, it was very difficult to whittle.
I used the following tools:
- Whittling knife - great for the back!
- Spoon knife - great for finishing the bowl and it’s sharp to work on back
- Range of gouge chisels - these made cutting out the bowl much easier!!
- Brass back tenon saw - this is a really rigid saw with many fine teeth making it easier to make precise straight cuts
- Range of cloth backed sand paper
The photos below show the process to create the spoon, I haven’t made one of these before and it had been a long time since I had even whittled anything, so it took me a long time! Thankfully, I got a lot of help from my brother Daniel who has made and sold many beautiful whale spoons 😊.
I purposely made this spoon large and chunky but in the future, as my confidence builds, I’ll aim to make some smaller (possibly more functional!) spoons 🥄.