Monkey Pod Window Spoon and a Black Walnut Spoon

I had watched a great documentary the other night called "Deviant Art" about the growing glass pipe blowing community.  Some extremely talented artists!! One artist in particular mentioned that to stay relevant, you had to push the envelope and constantly being thinking of new ideas.  I thought it was an excellent point and one I may try to apply to spoon carving.  

I drew some designs I liked on some blanks and got to it.  My first two designs broke because they had extreme curves in the handles so that told me they just were not practical.  Needless to say, I was frustrated.  Then I decided to carve a normal spoon but add a window to it.  So, I did just that!  I tried this out of Monkey Pod wood because it is easy to carve and very strong.  I am happy with the results!  This spoon is for sale at Thinking Spoons on Etsy

After I finished this spoon, I had about an hour and a half to kill before I needed to go pick up Lydia from work.  So I thought I would challenge myself to some speed carving.  I did it and I didn't cut myself!  This spoon is also for sale at Thinking Spoons on Etsy

Bloodwood Sauce Spoon "The Pig's Foot"

Bloodwood, or less commonly known as Satine, is found in tropical regions of South America.  It is usually used for carvings, trim, inlays, furniture, guitars, knife handles, and turned objects.  It is unbelievably dense and splinters very easily making it one of the more difficult woods I have tried carving.

While one part of me says I would never want to try to attempt carving anything from this wood again, the appearance of the wood is remarkable.  The wood also has an amazing weight to it.  This can be found for sale at Thinking Spoons on Etsy.

Some of the the First Spoons I Carved

I unloaded three months of pictures from my camera and iPhone this morning.  I realized I had a lot of pictures of the first spoons I tried making.  Thought I would share.

A three foot long beer mash paddle carved from maple with a draw knife.  Holes made with a Forstner bit.

This spoon was a gift for my good friends Mario and Chris.  I stole a piece of firewood from their pile and it turned out to be a gorgeous piece of Cherry.

This was the first spoon I made where I really felt like I was getting the hang of things.  The wood is Sycamore and it is steam bent.

The First Spoon I feel Comfortable Selling

I finally made a spoon that I feel is nice enough to sell (and I have enough spoons in my collection now).  This gorgeous wood is called Monkey Pod.  It grows in Central and South America.  It is commonly used for utilitarian purposes and furniture making along with carving.  I went a little crazy the other day and ordered four exotic species of wood to carve.  This is hands down the easiest wood I have tried carving.  It is super light but very rigid and tough.  The grain is a little swirly so I really had to pay attention to the directions of my knife strokes but overall was a joy to carve.  The curve in the handle matches the direction of the wood grain making for a nice strong spoon.  If interested in purchasing, please follow this link: ThinkingSpoons on Etsy

Monkey Pod Tree

Finished Wine Barrel Stave Spoons and More!

I finally got around to finishing the wine barrel stave spoon.  It came out great and has a very interesting buttery texture to it after a two day soak in mineral oil. This one is going in the personal collection.

 I did some steam bending on this spoon.

I also had some time to try carving another barrel stave spoon.  I tried my hand at carving a circular bowl.  Perfection comes with practice but overall, it came out quite nice.  This spoon will be a gift for the man who gave me the barrel.

Reclaimed Wood

When I first really started getting into woodworking, I would generally go out to buy and materials I would need.  This became expensive quickly and I found myself putting off ideas I was having simply because I didn't want to spend 200-300 dollars in wood.  After much browsing on the internet I discovered all of the beautiful things people are doing with reclaimed wood.  This wood is often dirt cheap if not free...  It may not always be exactly what you are looking for, but, I sort of see that as the beauty of working with something reclaimed.  The wood almost always has a story and will tell you what it wants to be reborn as.

Last year, my landlord gave me an old whiskey barrel that he used to make wine in.  The seals were no longer holding liquid, so, I grabbed it before he threw it out!  I broke it down into it's individual staves and made some Christmas presents with them.  The rest of them have just been sitting in my basement... waiting.

So, last night I decided to try to make some spoons out of them.  The staves themselves have a beautiful curve to them which would be perfect for a handle.  I thought with a little steam bending, I could get the bowl to be where I wanted it without disrupting that curve too much.

The staves are made of clear White Oak and it carved beautifully.  It almost had the consistency of frozen butter if you can imagine that.  This was a totally joy to carve.  I will be finishing it tonight.

Here are all of the tools I would use on a spoon like this.  Wetterlings small axe, Morakniv 120, Morakniv 164 spoon knife and a spokeshave.

That little dark spot there is actually staining from the wine.

My First Blog

My parents are pretty amazing people.  My father is a general contractor and my mother works for the government.  Both artists.  From a young age they both made an effort to keep my sister and I connected to various forms of art.  My mother has her various works all over their house.  My dad has helped her with some.  His art comes in the form of the home.  They collaborate together on everything they do which is amazing.

I started playing with hand tools at a young age.  By the time I was twelve I was working for my dad and I learned my way around power tools.  I enjoyed building houses with him, but, I went off to college is Boston after high school and that ended my house building days.  I went through a period of adjustment in college.  I tried new hobbies.  I learned a lot from researching things I may have been interested in at the time.  Then college ended and I was on my own in the real world.

I met my beautiful soon to be wife, Lydia.  She quickly learned that I cycled hobbies very frequently.  I was always trying to find something that I could settle on.  Her appreciation for the natural beauty of things and my abilities with wood made everything fall into place.  I knew that woodworking was something I would never get out of my system.  The only problem is that we moved to a small apartment outside of Boston and I had no room for a shop. I still have access to a shop at my friend Rob's house.  I brought all of my power tools there and build things from time to time.  But, I decided it was time to try a more simple (and less noisy) approach to woodworking.  I found that I could use hand tools in a corner of our apartment and fell in love with spoon carving of all things.  Spoon carving then led to a love of making any wood tools that people could find useful around the house.

Here I am now.. I hope that with this blog I can share some of the things I do and possibly make those things available to other people.  I should note that the name Thinking Spoons came from my friend Eli's father Fred Crouch.  The last thing he said to me before he passed was "Keep thinking" instead of good bye.  It is such a simple phrase that I feel everyone could live by.