a few spoons and 2 new bar stools

So I guess I’m pretty much a blogger slacker I suppose. But here are a couple of things I have been working on lately.

The first is another cherry chair I have been oiling up I am using a new type of oil, bio-shield that is supposed to be completely non-toxic. So far I really like it, seems to really soak in the wood and I love the fact I can rub it on without gloves.








And the second thing I have been doing is splitting fire wood I suppose this is pretty honest work by itself but it is especially nice when you find a piece or two in the pile you can make something out of. What I’ve got so far is some white oak that I think will make a nice welsh style chair. So i put the firewood on hold long enough to shave a few spindles.

This Bradford pear spoon is on its way to join the collection of a Mr. Norman Stevens.


He has been collecting hand carved spoons since the early 1970s. And even though I have never thought of my woodcraft as collectable I was tickled to be contacted by Mr. Stevens and ask if I would make a spoon for his collection.

Where I live it seems like everyone has a Bradford pear tree. The trouble with them is they don’t seem to stand up to storms very well. Well here is a recently completed spoon that came from a tree that went down in a recent storm.

The wood was a little tough to carve but it finished up pretty nice.

Just picked up some wal-nut I had sawed. It tickles me to have fresh sawed 10/4 – 24” wide wal-nut boards in the barn.

wide striaght grained board nice!

Here is a table I just finished. I am calling it a slant leg couch table. It is made out of quarter sawn white oak. The top is 1-1/8” thick and has bread board ends. The little bead detail you see running around the sides is not an applied piece of molding it is actually a thick piece of wood edge glued to the to the sides of the boards that make up the aprons. I’m sorry the pictures are so bad I might have to actually buy a decent camera some day. (Its low priority right now though.)

Ok so I went with a friend of mine a week or so ago to visit with chair maker Curtis Buchanan.


Curtis is truly a master chair maker but I think the thing I admire most is that he has managed to make his living working at something he truly loves. I admire his lifestyle as much as his chairs, but anyway while we were in Tennessee I picked up a few pieces of walnut. This is a couple of spoons I have made so far from that wood.

 
by the way the spoon in the middle is from a piece of birch the same friend gave me.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Two recently compleated oak chairs

Fresh sawed cherry

This one has a little chip carving on the handle. It would make a real nice kitchen spoon.

   cherry   $35.00

 here's a few  picture's of my latest cherry ladle

all of these cherry spoons i have been showing were carved out of small logs cleared for a new house that would have otherwise been used for fire wood or just pushed in a pile and left to rot.

i really like the idea of making something useful out of what would have otherwise been considered useless.

I haven’t had a lot of time for blogging lately. I have been really busy trying to get caught up with orders.

But here is a few more spoons. They are all cherry the light ones are from the sap wood.

As you can see they are finished completely with knife (no sandpaper).

This makes for a much more interesting surface and no mistaking that it was made by a human being.
And though it lacks the machine perfect straight lines,

I think this is exactly the kind of thing the world needs. Something made by a person for a person.
But then again if you need a perfect, boring, run of the mill spoon there’s a wall-mart on ever corner

Well it’s turned really cold here so I am trying to stay real close to the old woodstove.

I am working on a red oak rib back chair, fitting the back ribs.

Don’t worry about the mess on my table I seem to get along better among chaos.

Here I am fitting the sides with a block plane.

 It’s hard to beat a good knife.

Good tight fit.