Carving Projects

Check out my instagram account @hannahs_spoons for more photos of carving projects.

Walnut eating spoon with unique coloring, finished with walnut oil.

Baking a Spoon: An Experiment

I carved a small coffee scoop in birch, but had heard that baking spoons in the oven would toast the wood and add color to lighter woods. Birch is a fair wood, and I have a few items already made of it, so I used this small piece for an experiment.

After carving and sanding, I put an extremely light layer of walnut oil on the surface of the scoop, and then wiped it off. The purpose of this is to provide just a light film of oil that will accelerate the coloring process, allowing the spoon to be baked in less time and be less brittle than if it baked longer or at a higher temperature.

I baked this spoon in the oven on a cookie sheet, lined with parchment paper, at 400 degrees for approximately 22 minutes. The scoop came out of the oven with more color, slightly darker on the bowl than the handle. More trial and error as well as asking questions in the carving community will be needed to figure out how to get a perfectly even coloring, but I was pleased with this first attempt.

Before baking; placed on a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Fresh from the oven with some color, prior to finishing with oil.

Photos of the baked birch spoon when finished; a nice toasty brown!

Small cherry coffee scoop, finished with walnut oil. This green cherry wood carved like butter and was a joy to work with. I worked on creating a flat surface for future kolrosing decoration and a more detailed finial.

Squared scoop of yellow birch, finished with walnut oil, processed from a wood billet to finished piece. It's very rewarding to see a spoon emerge from a piece of wood. The billet I used had dried over the last year, which made for a little more difficult carving than green wood. Some slight spalting can be seen.

Red maple wooden knife/spreader, finished with walnut oil and beeswax. I liked carving the maple as a piece of green wood, much softer than dried maple; I also enjoy the application of a hard wood like maple for a wooden knife.

Swedish style spoon of spalted maple, finished with walnut oil and beeswax. The first spoon that I cut out using my new (to me) bandsaw. I completed the carving of this spoon using only my sloyd knife and hook knife. I really like the coloring of the spalting in this piece.

Walnut coffee scoop, finished with walnut oil and beeswax. This one will be a Christmas gift for my sister. I really like the coloring in the wood I have on hand and wanted this scoop to be roughly half of each color for contrast.

Walnut kayak spoon, finished with walnut oil and beeswax. This design is very sturdy, and can be thrown in a pack without fear of breaking. It is favored by modern backpackers for durability and slim profile. The design has rough origins in Native American material culture.

Small walnut scoop, with interesting coloring, finished with walnut oil and beeswax. A very fun, quick carve. Walnut is a joy to work with.

Long kitchen spoon out of birch, finished with walnut oil.

I've discovered birch is a little difficult to work with it; it tends to be stringy and even with attention paid during sanding, often there are imperfections in the finish. Need to take even more care when in the process using birch for future projects.

Soup spoon of yellow birch, finished with walnut oil and beeswax. I really like the color of this piece, and found the yellow birch easier to work with.

First time doing any sort of detail work; added a very basic finial to the design. This finial has the added bonus of being useful; I designed it to be able to lash a string to it, to hang off of a belt for easy access.