SPOON # 31 - Saturday 3rd August

Well, it's Spoonfest weekend and I am sitting at home feeling sorry for myself wishing I was there. I can't remember now the original reasons why I decided that I wouldn't be able to go this year - I'm going to blame Julian - but all I know is that in the end there was nothing stopping me from going other than leaving it too late to get tickets and organise travel.

So, I thought this week's spoon should have some kind of Spoonfest connection, and here it is.

Simon Hill is a tree surgeon from Cheshire (I think) who I met at last year's Spoonfest. Julian had know Simon for some time prior to that due to Bushcraft UK and some communications they had shared through that forum and we ended up camping next to him and his wife and daughter. He is a really nice and friendly bloke and after that meeting I began following his blog, which I really enjoy.

Simon has developed a couple of quite recognisable designs of spoon and is also an incredible chip carver. Have a look at his blog as it is very informative.

http://simonhillgreenwoodwork.blogspot.co.uk/

Recently Simon posted an item about carving pot hangers on the backs of cooking and serving spoons, along with a simple tutorial. I have seen these types of spoons before but have never actually done one so thought I'd give it a go, following his instructions and using one of his designs as the starting point.

You can clealy see the pot hanger on the back of the spoon....

...and here it is in action.

It is a large sycamore spoon - I have put my frosts carving knife in the picture for size comparison. It was a joy to carve as this particular design lends itself to long straight cuts. I did make a fatal error on this particular spoon which, though maybe not noticable on the pictures, will mean the spoon having a fairly short working life, I think. I'll try to explain: if you look at the picture of the side profile of the spoon, you will see that there are two main angles which meet at the widest part of the bowl. These angles are cut from opposite directions and should meet neatly at the bowl. Unfortunately, I got carried away with my new Nic Westermann axe and over-shot the cut which no amount of knife work can get rid of without drastically changing the shape of the spoon. And whilst it doesn't look too bad now, I imagine with use - warm washing up water and snagging on tea towels - it will probably split. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. The spoon still needs drying properly, and then oiling and I intend to do a little chip carving on the handle at some point, too.