A Tale of Two Spoons: An Introduction to Wood Carving

It's a valid question. For most people, buying a set of mass-produced utensils, regardless of being made of wood or not, makes sense.

However, for us, carving solved a more immediate issue.

You see, our fruit trees (specifically the apricot and cherry trees) had a big growing season and were getting big. Far to big. We had these sprawling trees that required not one, but two 10m x 10m (33' x 33') nets joined together... and over 7m (23') tall. So we had to do some staged prunings to get it to manageable levels.

That's a lot of green waste... that we were not going to be able to get rid of using normal waste disposal.. even if we could.

We both chose to use some of the apricot branches for our respective first spoons. Immediately, Ren and I chose two divergent strategies, each with their pros and cons.

Ren's strategy:

Her goal was to start small, and make a "coffee spoon" or table spoon. The smaller design needed less wood, and in general, less shaping overall. Which makes it easier in general. The shallower design also makes carving the hollowed out section easier.

However, the down side is that the smaller design meant she had tighter spaces to carve out, and less material left over to re-shape it if she made a mistake.

Ham's strategy:

In a nutshell, my strategy was to throw myself into the deep end, making every mistake along the way (intentionally) to see just how badly this would go...

I chose a twisted, gnarled, knotted piece of wood that I knew would be a pain. I left the pith in, just to see how different it was to carve around, and I chose to do a deep-ish ladle to test my... patience/will to live/accident-prone nature (amongst other things). Because just taking the word of YouTube folks without a little investigation galls my contrarian and somewhat curious nature... even if it's good advice. It was a starter piece with a free piece of wood. No harm, no foul if I fail.

However, a larger piece suits my ham-fisted build, the curves are generally more gentle, I gave myself more room inside the head to carve from, and I had more material to begin with, so when I inevitably made mistakes, I had enough left to work with to sort it out.

It was clear that our divergent approaches were producing quite different results. By the time I had finished my first kitchen utensil carving I had an idea to contrast my first carving experience by using dry wood. Now, a sane person would choose an aged softwood like some cedars, a poplar, or even a limewood (I believe that's "Bass wood in the U.S.).

Well, anyway, I decided to take an even slower approach by shaping a piece of ironbark scrap wood. Wow is hardened, aged, and incredibly dense wood a different beast to green fruit woods!

Ren, using more power tools, making smaller spoons in general, and practicing less insane tendencies to challenge oneself unnecessarily like this wayward Ham.... this is her accomplishment in the same time frame.

Wood carving's "free form" nature is surprisingly relaxing, and is more about what you can make from the piece of wood you're working from, and your personal sense of aesthetics than the usual straight cuts, accurate dimensions, tight joinery, and perfect finishing of "main stream" wood working.

Despite our shamelessly beginner status, I thought I'd share the lessons I've learned about our experiences with various tools, ranging from basic hand tools, then moving through to the cheaper power tools, then getting into more of the "fun stuff".

Each style of tool you use actually needs a different approach, and for the most part, there's a different feel to each type depending on the angles used, the grain of the wood, and the tool sharpness. Let me just say that it's not always immediately obvious to a new wood carver, and it's only when switching from one to another.... or from a blunt tool to a sharp that it becomes immediately apparent. Unfortunately, these are sensations that I frankly cannot describe to you. You just "feel it" as soon as you pick it up and use it. That said, if you're struggling... take a break, give the tool a quick sharpen (you will do that often, particularly with hand tools) and see if that improves things.

The three basic hand carving tools that most people use:

Pros and Cons of Basic Hand Carving Tools:

The four things these require are quite simple.

1. Physical capability: Enough strength and dexterity to both hold and use the tools in question.
2. Basic knowledge: An understanding of grain direction and how to approach certain shaping techniques.
3. Maintenance skills and equipment: The ability to create and maintain a very sharp edge, which for gouges and hook knives, need specific techniques and tools.
4. Patience: You can do amazing jobs with these tools, but it will take longer than the power tool approach. This is a boon for beginners because you're less likely to accidentally take huge chunks of wood off your work piece, giving you time to acclimatize to the work. Conversely, power tools require a different approach (taming the potential beast) rather than a relaxed "shape, then evaluate" cycle.

There are obvious cons if you lack these requirements for whatever reason. However, it doesn't take long to learn the carving techniques and the skills to maintain your tools. In fact "just giving it a go" with sharp pocket knife and a piece of wood will teach you a lot. Start with a piece of scrap because you'll make mistakes, but that's how you'll learn.... and everyone makes mistakes. It's figuring out how to shape it in order to make it look good again that matters!

Experience is a great yet painful teacher...

As beginners, Ren's petite form found hand carving quite hard on her hands, fingers and wrists, even with a blade that's pretty sharp. I can do it, but I also have much to learn in the technique to make multi-hour carving sessions a little less taxing. I enjoy it, although I need to pace myself and become much more efficient! Experienced wood whittlers can make a spoon in under an hour... but they have technique, more tools, and a better understanding of wood types than we do at the time of writing.

That said, for us beginners, it's undeniable that a great deal of time can be saved by using a power tools like the bandsaw or jigsaw to get the branch to "spoon blank" (a crude spoon shaped) state. From there, rotary tools and burrs, can definitely remove wood faster than these three hand tool types... at least in the hands of newbies like us. But the finish is different (rougher), and there's often less control.

Adzes, & Axes, & Draw Knives, Oh (or Froe?) My!

But before we move onto power tools, I've been talking specifically about the basic three carving tools, and not some of the more exotic (well... let's just say "Old timer" hand tools) that are less about fine shaping, and more about fast material removal.

The more aggressive hand tools, like the hatchet/axe/adze, and even froe... allow you split and hog-out chunks of wood by using the strength of your whole arm.

Similarly, a draw knife, allows users to use both arms and even their body to power through a carving stroke. Using more of the body allows for greater strength and less strain on hands and wrists. Ren took a barked branch to identifiable spoon blank shape in about the same time with a hatchet being used as a froe, and draw knife... as setting up the band saw and moving from one cut to another. She's a beginner, on both the band saw and the draw knife, but it's likely that with practice she can get faster at both. Although the draw knife needs regular sharpening, the bandsaw needs to be cleaned thoroughly after cutting green wood to prevent rust. So if time is a consideration, hand tools can be faster... and power tools can be slower.

Remember, bigger tools, regardless of whether they're powered or not, move more material... usually at the expense of precision and control, until you develop your own skills.. then you will be surprised by what you can do. As it is with any tool or skill set.

However, when the parts are small there's two big down-sides:

1. Smaller parts wear out very quickly, so you need lots of them.
2. Smaller parts need greater precision to make, which of course, makes them also more expensive.

The tools themselves aren't very expensive, and if you go for an alternative brand, they can be much cheaper again. But the accessories and consumables still add up. To save money here's my advice earned from over a decade of Dremel use:

1. While the collet system works, I personally find buying the optional Dremel chuck a worthy addition that pays for itself. Not only are heads more easily changed, you can use "off brand" consumables (with subtlely different 3mm, 3.2mm or 1/8" shaft diameters) and even small but differently sized drill bits far more easily and safely than the collet system most rotary tools come packaged with.
2. Buy consumables in activity specific kits, (cutting/sanding) rather than individual pieces. The per-unit price drops quite a bit. Be careful with "general use" packs, as they'll have bits in there you don't need. Unless of course, the general cheaper off-brand kits save you money. :~)
3. Ali Express and eBay are your friends for off-brand consumables, it's often worth buying a 50 pack (or more) from Ali Express for about the same money as Dremel will charge you for two heads... and the quality/lifespan of those bits aren't always inferior to the brand offerings.
4. Be selective where you use your Dremel (or rotary tool)... it's easy to drift into situations where you should really use a larger tool, with more cost-effective consumables, and where the detailed work that Dremel's specialise in, isn't as useful. A hack saw will cut a bolt far more cheaply than a Dremel and any cheap metal-rated hacksaw blade will cut 100 bolts, no problem. A 35mm diameter Dremel cut-off wheel (like a mini angle grinder cut disk) mightn't get through 3 bolts, and cost $5 each.
5. This sounds like the previous point, but isn't. Be selective in where and how you use your Dremel-style consumables! Since all the consumables are both more expensive, and shorter-lasting, you can waste a lot of money through poor consumable choices. If you skip direct from 120 grit to 240 grit sandpaper on a 6" random orbital sander, that's 17,671 square millimetres of sandpaper surface, you might need a few more minutes of sanding and a couple of extra sanding disks. A large sandpaper drum for a Dremel has just 226 square millimetres of sandpaper surface (or just 1.3% of the orbital sander's area)... skipping grits means you go through a lot more 240 grit drums that you'd otherwise have used and wasted hours if not days of your life in unnecessary sanding. Ok, sure, you could buy 100 drums from AliExpress for a couple of dollars, but 1 sheet of 6" ROS sandpaper is often sub $1 AUD (if you buy fancy stuff like Festool/Cubitron in bulk)... and each of those do 80-120x the work in 10% of the time. In short, be smart with your consumable choices, and you'll get more done for less.

Anyone who does spoon carving with power tools will almost certainly start off with the Dremel (or equivalent) because they're cheap and ubiquitous. The Foredom flex grinder is just too expensive for anyone outside of professional crafting to consider.. and even then... I couldn't justify it. That said, with cheap alternatives like Vevor, in most cases, I can honestly say "at least consider skipping a Dremel and go to this".

That said, regardless of the tool you're using, buying your Dremel-compatible and flex-grinder accessories (sanding disks, drums, burrs, etc) from AliExpress will save you an absolute fortune over local hardware stores like Bunnings here in Australia.

Similar tools, but different approaches:

Ren and I found that, despite using similar tools, we had different initial power carving approaches.

Ren preferred the lighter, higher speed Dremels for her work, focussing on small burrs and drum sanding attachments to get most of her shaping done. She'd finish with the oscillating tool, which I'll discuss below.

Meanwhile, I preferred the flex grinder with chunky burr for rough carving, then refining the shape with smaller burrs, and ultimately using spongey sanding accessories to smooth curved hollows, and convex surfaces alike. After an hour of use, the Dremel's vibration and noise made shaping uncomfortable for me (despite wearing hearing protection). The flex shaft damps the vibration down considerably, and the much larger motor doesn't scream as much as a Dremel's tiny motor often does.

Ren used the Dremel tools a lot at first, but later used the angle grinder with power-carving ball gouges/turbo scraping attachments as she gained more confidence, then finished her carving projects up with the oscillating multi tool for the sanding stages. Which we'll discuss next. I only uses the Dremel for minor touch-ups and final polishings.

You know how I said I was falling behind Ren's faster strategy, because I kept choosing to "challenge myself", and that my mere ladle and spatula were all I could do in the same time....

...Well, that wasn't entirely the case. You see, I decided to build several prototype jigs that would replace the various tools one would normally use to make this:

Oh, before I go....

I forgot to mention that this pepper grinder is 430mm tall, which just under 17 inches, and this is made of a very dense hardwood. Ironbark is an extremely tough tree built for Australian conditions. The bark is resistant to fire and heat, the sapwood is immune to lyctid borers, while the heartwood is class 3 resistant. So if left unprotected in wet ground, it'll last 25+ years... above ground, 50+ years and indoors... centuries.

Between the workshop, garden, IT stuff, cheeses, baking, and now wood carving, I have to divide my spare time accordingly. Sorry but not everything can be dashed off in a few minutes.