DIY detail carving knives....

I have done quite a bit of carving, kolrossing and chip-carving on spoons over the years, some that I have been quite proud of, others that have not been quite so successful. For each of these I have mostly used the tip of my Mora 106, held in a 'pen' grip and, on the whole, it's worked alright. It can be a bit tricky and it's easy to nick yourself when holding the blade of a sharp knife like this. I know there are specialist knives available for these different decorative techniques but being a paid-up skinflint have never got round to buying any.

For a while I have fancied having a go with one of the Del Stubbs kolrossing knives...

...but figured, before I buy I really ought to have a go at making one myself. So, I reground the edge of a small exacto-knife type blade, made a handle from a piece of sycamore, drilled and glued it, and gave it a go.

It's something of an 'organically' shaped handle - following the grain of the wood. Feels pretty good in the hand.

Flat exacto-knife type craft blade, reground with a better edge.

I tried it out quickly on this willow spoon that I had made the previous week. It worked well but gave quite a fine cut and, due to the flat blade, was quite hard to turn to carve curves.

Made from a crook from a willow tree that had blown down in the January storms.

I then looked again at the Del Stubbs knife and realised that his blade was made from a cylindrical piece of steel, not a flat blade, which I figured would give a wider cut as it is a wider blade (and therefore a more vivid colour to the line) and would be better for maneuvering in the wood. So, I had another go.

This time a used an old dremel tool bit for the blade (probably stainless steel so probably not great at holding its edge) and a yew handle.

Rounded instead of flat blade - makes all the difference.

Tried out the second of my detail knives on this sycamore spoon - more about the spoon in another post. The knife worked really well, handled and turned in the wood with no effort. I'm really pleased with it. Julian has given me some piano wire to make him and a couple more from - should be nice carbon steel, but needs annealing first.

I did actually put my hand in my pocket whilst on a trip to Axminster tools with Ju and Eden and bought a Two Cherries chip carving knife. It was cheap, so I couldn't complain too much, but I wasn't terribly impressed with the edge that it came with and spent a little time just tidying it up.

I tried it out on this little willow ladle - made from a little crook. It worked well - I haven't chip carved in a while so I was quite rusty. I love the little click you get when two of your cuts meet up and you know, when you add the third cut, the chip's going to come away clean.

Having said that, over the past years I've made do with a bunch of these DIY knives that I made from old butter knives - they work perfectly well and at about £1 for ten from a charity shop, a lot cheaper.

I cut a bunch of crooks from the willow tree that had come down - near Charnwood Waters in Loughborough, in case you know the area. They were not very big so I could only make these little salt spoon sized ladles. 

I really love those 'stripes' at the heel of the bowl - striations caused by stress in the grain at the bend of the branch.

They are quite fiddly, but I really enjoy carving these little spoons.

OWC Spring Spoon Moot Revision....

Having nailed my colours to the mast after my years of prevaricating about organising a Midlands Spoon Carving event, and saying that I would just choose a date and stick to it, it now falls to me to announce a change of date. It hadn't occurred to me when I first picked a random arbitrary date that it happened to be Mother's Day weekend and could thus be difficult for people to commit to. So, I am going to put it back a week to Saturday 21st March. I hope that makes it a little more practical for you folks who are wishing to join us.

I'm thinking it will be at my home - I'll post an address closer to the date in case I have to change it - and imagining a 2 o'clock start (hopefully this will give everyone time to do their Saturday morning chores with their significant others - shopping, swimming lessons, football practise, cleaning the bathrooms, etc) and then we'll just keep going till we've had enough. Once we are all together, if we decide we want to do it again sometime, we can decide if there is a better time/day of the week in future.

Anyway, I'm excited to meet some fellow carvers, enthusiasts, beginners, and those who are simply intrigued by the notion of grown people spending time carving wooden spoons when they are only 45p at Wilkos and so want to take a look at the freaks. See you there?

Adventures in chair making part 1

Well, it's not exactly a chair, and I'm not particularly proud of it, but I guess it marks the first stop on our journey to chair making. Ju and I have been on school holiday this past week and we had lofty intentions of starting our chair project, but what we hadn't banked on was young children with chicken pox, tonsillitis and a bad back which meant I could hardly stand up. Well, we got together at Ju's on the Monday and I took with me some stool parts that I had begun some time ago and probably should have thrown away but I am more stubborn (and stupid) than that. I read a recent post on Peter Follansbee's blog asking the question 'what is green wood working' - well I'll tell you this for nothing, this oak was far from green wood. I'd been given the wood some time ago by my friend Dave - I'd guess 2 years ago. The legs I had hewn and shaved into rough octagons when they were green - the seat, which is a slab of oak (as are the legs) I have had drying out and seasoning nicely in my shed for the past couple of years. I must say, this is not a technique I would recommend, trying to carve seasoned oak, but needs must, and all that.

I saddled the seat using a couple wood gouges, a larger on first then went over it all again with a finer one to give more defined cuts. I had already decided to leave it with tool marks on as I really like the effect, not only because as yet neither of us have an inshave or travisher - I'm going to have to save up for one as they are not cheap. I had made things more difficult by leaving the rounded shape of the original oak log on the underside of the seat, meaning that clamping it down for carving was more difficult than it need have been as it rocked around all over the place. Still, a good lesson.

Once the seat was finished we drilled mortices with a brace and bit, estimating the angles as best we could using a carpenters adjustable square, and was quite happy with what we achieved. Drilling from the underside did mean we got some tear-out when the drill bit broke through the surface on the seat side - we'll have to work-out how to overcome that - any suggestions appreciated.

Julian had invested in a 5/8" Veritas tenon cutter which is a formidable bit of kit. For those who haven't seen one before, they look like this:

Ostensibly a great big pencil sharpener affair that you fix to your power drill and then offer up the legs or rungs or spindles you want a tenon on and Bob's your uncle - easier than falling off a horse (Aside - Dave, I know you were wary of using your lovely tenon cutter with seasoned oak but it cut through it like a hot knife through butter!).

EXCEPT: once you introduce the end of your leg into the funnel of the tenon cutter and the blade engages the wood, it snatches it up, draws it in and, if you're not careful, before you know it you've cut it and if it's wrong then it's too bad. There are methods of ensuring you don't cut the tenon any longer than you want it, but the mistake we made was getting carried away cutting the tenons without first checking how to ensure that the leg was centred, so that the tenon is in the centre, or that we were cutting straight and not off at an angle. Again, any advice on how to achieve this would be much appreciated. As it happens, our tenons turned out, shall we say, less than perfect, meaning that all the effort we had put into boring the angles of the mortises was a waste of time since the irregular tenons meant they were all skewiff anyway (that's colloquial English for wonky).

Anyway, we fitted the legs with a smear of PVA, since the parts were all dry so there was not going to be any shrink tightening. I had cut slots in the leg tenons, going with the grain, then knocked in wedges of dry ash, again making sure they were aligned against the grain so as not to open a split in the seat. We followed Drew Langsner's technique for leveling the legs - something we got wrong the first time and had to do again as we had one leg shorter than all the rest (invaluable lesson - once the angles have been marked on the bottom of each leg, turn the stool so that the face of the leg you are trimming to length is facing up, otherwise there's a risk of cutting the front of the leg too short; this is difficult to explain, but trust me, it makes a difference, or it did to us the first time we cut the legs) - which was a really clever but simple technique employing a pair of compasses and a bunch of small wedges cut from waste.

So, here is the finished stool - and it only took me best part of four years talking and thinking about it.

Look carefully and you can see the tear-out beside the revealed leg tenons.

Strong enough to hold me and Saxon for a bedtime story.

Saxon took an immediate shine to it so I thought it best if he had it. And doesn't he look thrilled - so easily pleased at that age.

...and good enough for Ninja Turtles!

As you can see, the angle on the spread of the front legs is not equal - not because the mortices were mis-cut but because the tenons were off centre and strangely angled - as I said 'skewiff'.

Introducing the Occasional Whittling Club....

For a couple of years now, Julian and I have been talking about holding a carving club for midlands carvers, but then we never get round to setting a date. And I’ve realised, the only way to ever make it happen is to go ahead and just set a date and go for it. So, here it is – the first meeting of the Occasional Whittling Club. It is not an exclusive thing – everyone is welcome, carvers of all ages and abilities, even if it is only an interest and as yet you haven’t carved anything, you’re welcome to come along. It is not for spoon carvers alone; whatever your craft interest – spoons, bark craft, pole lathing, abstract whittling – you are welcome to come share your enthusiasm.

I chose to call it a ‘moot’ as this is the word for a gathering used amongst the Bushcraft fraternity, which is where Julian’s and my interest in whittling first originated, and I suspect the same is true for a number of greenwood workers. It comes from the old English word ‘gemot’ or the Anglo-Saxon ‘mot’ which means ‘a gathering’, but it seems also to mean ‘a tree stump’, which I thought was quite apt for our purposes.

I will post details of time and venue a little closer to the date, but it will be on Saturday 14^th March, morning or afternoon, maybe both, not sure yet – put the date in your diary. It will be in Leicester (most probably my house so there is no charge for attendance) so if you are a Midlands based carver or fancy a trip to Leicester, we look forward to seeing you.

It will be an informal event – some carving, sharing of ideas, borrowing of tools, advice and guidance if required, but mostly chatting about wood. Bring tools and items to show; bring items to swap if you wish. If you have some nice wood, bring it with you. It should be fun – who knows, it might even become a regular thing.

Whilst confirmation of attendance is not compulsory, if you know for sure you are most likely going to come along, please just drop us a comment so we have some idea of numbers. Happy spooning!

George Lailey Bowl

George Lailey is famous for being the last English pole lathe bowl turner. A misnomer of sorts as there are quite a few around now, however at the time he died I understand it was just him. I heard about him through Robin Wood's blog and in his book The Wooden Bowl. I was absolutely thrilled last year when in a local antiques shop I found what looked to be one of his bowls. As soon as I got it home I put a picture on the green woodworking forum to see what the experts thought and the general consensus was that it is a Lailey bowl.

It was great to own a lovely bowl that is also a piece of history, but also to be able to study and learn from it. So the other day I decided to turn a bowl, not a copy of my Lailey, but something inspired by it.

It was nice to be turning Sycamore again. I've mostly been turning Birch recently, but I think that Sycamore might be my favourite (a favourite of many traditional turners as well according to Robin's book). The smell was fantastic and brought back some great memories.

I made the walls a bit thicker than usual as it was in keeping with the Lailey bowl. It gives it a nice sturdy feel without being clunky.

My chuck doesn't have jaws big enough for the size of foot I wanted, so I had to have a foot within a foot.

Here they are together. Like I said, it wasn't an attempt to make an exact copy of the Lailey bowl. I didn't take any measurements or hold them next to each other for a comparison. I just put the original on a shelf near my Lathe and glanced up at it from time to time. look forward to seeing how it moves as it dries. Hopefully it will develop some nice movement.

Check out this link for a post by Robin Wood on George Lailey.