Steam Bent Spoon Blanks

Perfect crooks for spoon carving are rare in the wild, so I've taken to shaving blanks that follow the wood fibers and then steam bending them into the perfect crooks that my heart so desires to carve into spoons.  I lose some of the romance of searching for, finding, and working with a curve that was grown by a tree, but I gain a limitless supply of perfect crooked spoon blanks that are a true joy to carve.  

Because these blanks have no twisting, curling, or knotty fibers, they finish carve beautifully.  This makes it easier to leave the nice, long, consistent knife marks that are one of the calling cards of skillful spoon carving.

The process begins with a straight section of spoon carving wood and a froe.  I'm carving mostly red maple and paper birch these days.

I sight down the blank to orient the split in a way that avoids small knots.

Then tap the froe in...

and pull back...

to yield two halves.

I like to take a moment to look over the blanks and get myself oriented.

Then onto the shaving horse...

 ...to create a flat face that perfectly follows the wood fibers.

You know you've got it right when the wood cuts cleanly in both directions and the grain runs in straight lines from one end to the other.

Not quite there.  Notice the tearing on the right hand side and the V shaped grain lines starting a couple of inches in front of the shaving horse jaw.  It is a little hard to see on the red maple, but look closely.

Grain lines that run from one end of the blank to the other tell you that the blank follows the wood fibers.

I trim the edges square to the face.  I like to keep the blank a little wider than the spoon I will be carving.

I scribe the blank to 5/8" thickness.

...and shave to the scribed line.

I like the grain pattern inside the bowl when the bark side of the blank is the top side of the spoon.  The top of the spoon will be against the bending form.

I mark the outside of the bend so that I don't get turned around when the blank is hot from the steam box.

Basic bending form shape with blank in position.

Half an hour of steam and a couple of clamps create the bend.

Twelve hours later the blank has set enough to remove from the form and start carving.

Some of the fibers tore on the outside of this blank.

I shave down below the torn fibers...

...and then follow the newly exposed layer of fibers from one end of the blank to the other.

That nice flat surface is ideal for layout.

The back of the bowl should begin a little bit up the curve, for looks.

If you carve them fast these bent blanks are soft, like green wood. which they are!  But you'll want to carve them fast because at close to 1/2" thickness they dry out quickly and become more difficult to work with.  I have a handful of spoons and spatulas that I have bent like this that are in constant use.  Over the past year and a half the bends have opened very little.

Give it a try!  Spoons carved from these blanks can be very thin because they perfectly follow the grain and the sinuous curves make for beautiful, sweeping shapes.

Here is a link to pictures of an eating spoon that I carved like this last year.

A New Forge and Parking Lot Blacksmithing.

I've taken some time away from nose to the grindstone tool production lately to set up a small blacksmith shop that can wheel in and out of my workshop.  While a dedicated space for metal work would be ideal, this mobile arrangement beats the pants off of hitting the road every time I need to heat up and pound some steel.

My parking lot smithy.

The forge and anvil live in a corner of my workshop and I hand truck them down a small flight of stairs into the parking lot as needed.  At the end of the day, after everything cools down, they roll back up the steps and into the workshop until the next time their services are required.

Adze blade coming up to critical temperature.

I opted for a vertical tube forge design with a blown burner.  Blown burners use a fan to supply the air to mix with the gas.  The gas and air mixture come in on the bottom of the forge and the doors are at the top.  This arrangement gives a nice, even heat with no hot spots which makes heat treatment a breeze.

There are a storm of new tool ideas on the horizon that this forge makes possible.  Expect to see some of them soon and some of them much later.  It also means that the adze production, while slightly dependent on the weather, will flow a little faster now.

Nice, even heat.

Curly Maple Windsor Chair Reamers

I'm just finishing up a batch of curly maple reamers.  The wood is rejected leg blanks from Curtis Buchanan's windsor chair shop in Jonesborough, Tennessee.  Ideal chair wood is dead straight grained and boring, boring, boring.  Curtis rejected these blanks because dealing with the curly grain is more hassle than he was interested in, and the best log yard in the country is a fifteen minute drive from his house.

Fortunately for me, that curly grain makes for some very nice reamers.  I have seven of these reamers available for $130 each plus shipping.  I can bill through Paypal and have them shipped in time for the holidays.  Leave a comment or email me if interested.

Boxwood Chair Reamer

I think I have found the perfect wood for a reamer.  Sometime last year I started experimenting with making reamers from extremely dense woods.  It has become one of the things that keeps the repetitive process interesting.  I get to experiment with woods that I haven't used before, learn a little something about the working characteristics of the species, and end up with a very solid, hard wearing reamer.  Win, win, win.

I just finished up a reamer made out of an exceptional piece of boxwood and it is one of the most pleasing woods that I have had the pleasure to use.  It is heavy and hard, but cuts like butter; it is smooth and seemingly indifferent to which direction the grain is flowing.  It holds exceptional detail and your fingers can sense the hardness as they touch the surface.  I think I'm in love.

Macassar Ebony Reamer.

I didn't have time to take pictures of it, but I also made one out of Macassar Ebony.  Thankfully it went to a student of Greg Pennington's and Greg got a good shot of it in use with lasers running up both sides to dial in the right angle.  The ebony is even more dense than the boxwood; it sinks in water.  But it isn't as friendly to work with.

I've only made a handful of these super dense reamers and until now I've sold them to people who are already on my wait list.  But, if you are considering ordering a reamer and are interested in a specialty wood, let me know, and I'll let you know what material I have that is properly acclimated.

The boxwood reamer pictured throughout this post is already spoken for and headed to Australia tomorrow.  I have one more perfect boxwood blank and three pieces of Macassar ebony on hand which are all ready to throw on the lathe and make into reamers.  The price for these ultra hard reamers is $185.  I make the reamers to order, so please enquire if interested.

I just started another special batch of reamers today and they'll be ready to ship in time for the holidays.  More about them later this week.

Skin on Frame Kayak: Building the Molds and Bending the Gunnels

One way to accurately replicate a boat design is to build the boat on a strongback with molds that hold the major structural pieces in the proper position.  For most skin on frame kayak building, this method is overkill, but Brian Schulz of Cape Falcon Kayak says that if you stray from the design of his F1 kayak that you'll have slug of a boat.

So, I built a strongback and molds at several stations along the boats length to hold the gunnels, chines, and keel in the proper positions.

Keel bent into place.

Molds in place.

One of the most interesting parts of building this boat was learning how to loft measurements from a drawing.  Lofting is a dead simple, logical, ingenious process that you can use to pull measurements off of a drawing.  I then used those measurements to create a series of molds and attached them to my strongback.  Here is a link to a more detailed description of lofting that replica kayak builder extraordinaire Harvey Golden wrote.  Learning a new way to define complex shapes in space is pretty much a guarantee  to blow my mind every time.

Getting the gunnels in place was exciting, because one of the most prominent features of a boat is the sweep of the sheer.  The curve of the gunnels defines the sweep of the sheer on this boat and as soon as they were bent into place, it felt like the boat jumped off the page and into my workshop.

I added tabs to the molds and used wedges to lock the gunnels in place.

The ends of the gunnels are lashed together.

Looking boat-ish.

With all the major longitudinal parts in place, I snaked the boat back through the doorway to my workshop, which is just big enough to fit the kayak diagonally across it.  This arrangement made for a few weeks of inconvenient access to my bandsaw.

Skin on Frame Kayak: Ripping and Mortising

Before I could do anything else I had to free the gunnels, keel and chines from the Western red cedar 1x10 that was holding them.  I clamped a wooden fence to the base of my circular saw and went to town.

Fence clamped to circular saw for ripping.

Western red cedar for keel, chines, and gunnels.

My 9x16 workshop was more than a little tight for building this boat.  I overflowed into my shopmate's space on evenings and weekends and then carefully snaked the kayak back into my workshop before he returned.  I also worked outside as the weather permitted.

Gunnels, keel, and chines ripped.

Gunnels clamped up to lay out rib mortises.

Before bending the gunnels to shape, I wanted to cut all of the rib and deckbeam mortises.  I didn't have a plunge router to cut the mortises for the ribs so I picked up a little clamp on doweling jig to give me two holes at full depth on either end of the rib mortises.  Chopping out the waste in between and squaring up the ends was easy peazy.  Admittedly, not as easy peazy as a plunge router, but I enjoy quality time with a mortising chisel when I get it.  Most of my work right now is with hickory, sugar maple, and East Indian rosewood.  Working with the soft red cedar was sheer delight.  I see more softwoods in my future.

Jig aligns on center.

Drill two holes, scribe the edges, and chop out the middle.

I jigged up my drill press to cut the angled deck beam mortises.

Deck beam mortising jig.

Mortise layed out.

Three holes drilled.

Waste drilled out.

One final pass and the mortise is complete.

With the forty rib mortises and twelve deckbeam mortises excavated, I was ready to start bending the gunnels to shape.

Skin on Frame Kayak: The Design

Earlier this summer my girlfriend ponied up and bought herself a nice hot pink fiberglass sea kayak, which finally put the screws to me to build the skin on frame boat that I had been dreaming of for the past couple of years.

Skin on frame construction is the way that kayaks were originally built in the arctic waters of their origin.  You make a wooden skeleton that is a framework for a waterproof skin that encloses the boat. Traditionally, the skin was made up of several seal skins that had been sewn together, and then sewn around the boat.  Most modern builders of skin on frame boats opt for ballistic nylon, polyester, or canvas as opposed to seal skin.

I considered building a Greenland style boat, but eventually settled on building an F1 kayak designed by Brian Schulz of Cape Falcon Kayak.  Brian is a paddler and kayak designer/builder on the Oregon coast.  He teaches skin on frame boat building classes and builds kayaks and paddles to order.  He is actually gearing up for an epic round the country kayak class marathon this winter/spring that is probably coming to a city near you.  You can read more about the design, Brian, and skin on frame boats in general here.  Check here to see the current destinations for Brian's traveling kayak workshops.  Inspiring person, inspiring boats.  Here is a picture of Brian paddling one of his F1s out in their natural habitat.

Want one yet?

At 14' long the F1 is short for a sea kayak, but it is playful, fast, and action packed.  Armed with Christopher Cunningham's book for construction techniques, Harvey Golden's drawing of Brian's F1 kayak, and a clear vertical grain 14' cedar 1x10, I took the plunge.