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.
with a flex shaft, and carbide carving burr that looks like a ball with
very rough spikes on it.
make sure you hold the spoon tight with some sort of clamp and the flex
shaft handle tight because
the burr really removes wood fast. after you get it to the approximate
shape you want; then either
just use sandpaper to smooth it or use a finer burr. you could scrape it
with a curved knife blade also.
i've carved spoons with knives before and it takes a lot of time. chisels
are faster, but you have to pay
close attention to wood grain direction with them and if you are chiseling a
burl; then that is difficult.
the burrs come in several shapes and two degrees of roughness. they are
expensive, but can be used
in a lot of other situations. do not try to use a dremel mototool because
it will take you forever and they
are a little bit weak.

as for turning the spoon bowl on the lathe:
you could make yourself a jig to hold the spoon blank and turn the bowl
twice using two different centers, just
a quarter inch or so apart and smooth the result later. then turn the spoon
after you have turned the spoon bowl.
that would give you an oblong spoon bowl to start out with.
i leave it up to you or the rest of the group to come up with the jig, but i
would think it would be fairly easy. making
the jig so the angle of the bowl to the spoon shaft was adjustable would be
tricky.
good luck,
rich