Hello Mike,

If you have made the spoon part that needs to be hollowed an oval the way most
spoons are made, the only way to hollow the bowl is with carving tools: gouges
and hook tools do a nice job. I turned some spoons about five years ago out of
some dry cherry. I actually turned two spoons at once and then sawed them down
the middle to create two spoons. I then carved the bowls out with my carving
tools. This is a pretty slow process for very hard woods.

Another tool that will do a quick job of hollowing the bowl of an oval spoon is
the Lancelot from King Arthur's, I'm not sure who carries this now, or the
Arbotec tool made in Australia. I have one of the Lancelot tools and it works
great for hollowing larger areas. It is very agressive and the spoon will need
to be securely clamped to a bench of something.

Now, if you made the bowls round and the handles are not too long, you can make
up a special chuck to hold the spoon in place while you hollow the bowl just as
if you were making a small bowl. You just have to avoid the spinning handle
which can smart if it hits you.

At Provo last summer, Jean Francois Escoulin demonstrated turning spoons with
offset handles using his ball and socket chuck. He made the bowls of his spoons
round since he hollowed them like a bowl. I covered this in the August or
September, 2004 issues of More Woodturning, at the moment I don't remember which
issue.

Probably for what you need to do, a Lancelot or an Arbotec would probably meet
your needs best.

Fred Holder
http://www.fholder.com

In article m, Mike Rinken
says...

So I've turned a bunch of wooden utensils for friends and family, but never
had time to finish them for Xmas presents. The reason behind this is not
because of the handles (which look fab thank you very much) but because of
the other end. I've gotten good creating the wooden flipper but I'm having
trouble finding an efficient way to carve or remove the material from the
spoon to make it a spoon. I've tried my dremel with an aggressive sanding
tube and that works, but takes forever to actually hollow it out and get a
good spoon. I've also tried my ROS with 80 grit on it and cut round groves
on the edges to make a textured spoon, but not one with a good deep spoon
pocket.

So How do I create or hollow out the spoon part after I've turned the
handle? I cannot think of any way to do this with the lathe, and I need to
do it in an efficient manner as I have about 30 of these to do.

Thanks!!!