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!!!

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!!!

For the cherry spoons I made, I used a small gouge to hollow out the
spoons. I found that a shallower cut (rather than a deep hollow) is
more useful, unless you are making a dipper.


On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 16:10:54 -0700, "Mike Rinken" mwrinken at gmail
dot com wrote:

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!!!

On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 16:10:54 -0700, "Mike Rinken" mwrinken at gmail
dot com wrote:

....

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!!!


I've not made spoons, but the technique I use to create a recess in
the bottom of small bowls may be helpful here.

I chuck the 2" power sanding head (I normally use in my hand drill to
sand the rest of the bowl on the lathe) into the drill press. That
gives me two hands free to handle what needs to be sanded.

I use 80 grit to shape the recess, and then move to finer grits to
finish the process.

Gordon

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

Hi Mike!

I hollow out the spoon end with the red Typhoon bits that Fordom has. Their
red carbide bits are more aggressive than their blue ones. I don't have a
Fordom, but my Dremel works just fine with their 1/8" shank bits. I think
they go for about $15 - $18 (US). I have a flex shaft for it to make it
easier to handle as I carve out the spoon. I then use Dremel's abrasive pad
that mounts on it's arbor attachment for final smoothing.

Hope this helps!
- Dan Klima

"Mike Rinken" mwrinken at gmail dot com wrote in message
news:ef3f0$41db227e$41a9ca42$19772@allthenewsgroup s.com...
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!!!

You can use a scorp for that also. See:
http://woodcraft.com/search/search.aspx?query=scorp

Leif
"Mike Rinken" mwrinken at gmail dot com wrote in message
news:ef3f0$41db227e$41a9ca42$19772@allthenewsgroup s.com...
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!!!

I'm a spoon carver to the tune of two-three hundred a year, and I also own
the Pfeil scorp, which resides on the shelf where I put it perhaps a
half-dozen years ago. IMO, worse than useless, though as an inshave, it
might be of some value.

The hooked knives are useful for smoothing, though there's nothing that can
beat a gouge for removing the interior. I use (real) poplar V blocks to
protect the handle when I do turn a spoon, and clamp it securely to my
surface before carving with my 1 1/2" #7. Clamp to something which you can
walk around, so you can take full advantage of slicing downhill. I can get
a useable surface with the gouge, though it takes longer than smoothing with
my hooked knives. DO NOT try to hold the spoon in one hand and the knife in
the other, use the wooden hands and put both of the vulnerable fleshy ones
on the knife handle.


"Leif Thorvaldson" wrote in message
...
You can use a scorp for that also. See:
http://woodcraft.com/search/search.aspx?query=scorp

Leif
"Mike Rinken" mwrinken at gmail dot com wrote in message
news:ef3f0$41db227e$41a9ca42$19772@allthenewsgroup s.com...
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.

Soren berger makes spherical type spoons on a lathe - they are more like
scoops, quite attractive, Raffan makes scoops on a lathe as well, info in
his book


"Mike Rinken" mwrinken at gmail dot com wrote in message
news:ef3f0$41db227e$41a9ca42$19772@allthenewsgroup s.com...
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!!!

"william_b_noble" wrote: (clip) Raffan makes scoops on a lathe as well,
(clip)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If we're going to talk about scoops: A scoop is much like a goblet, with
part of the bowl removed, and is turned the same way. The stem of the
goblet is equivalent to the handle of the scoop. (and the foot is left off,
of course.)

you may leave the foot on if you want the scoop to stand up and be counted
......

"Leo Lichtman" wrote in message
...

"william_b_noble" wrote: (clip) Raffan makes scoops on a lathe as well,
(clip)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If we're going to talk about scoops: A scoop is much like a goblet, with
part of the bowl removed, and is turned the same way. The stem of the
goblet is equivalent to the handle of the scoop. (and the foot is left
off,
of course.)