Carving a love spoon

Cutting out the love spoonOne of the most important things to consider before you start is to choose a suitable piece of wood. For most of my spoons I use Lime (aka basswood). It is pale in colour and will darken upon exposure to light to a mid tone mellow brown. It is relatively soft for a hardwood and very close and even grained, making it ideal for carving. Other woods such as cherry, pear and walnut are also nice to carve although denser and will take longer.

Once I have drawn the design onto the 10-12mm thick spoon blank the wood around the design is removed with a fretsaw/ scroll saw. This is commonly known as piercing.

Although I have over 100 different chisels I tend to usually only use about 15. They are a selection of different sized gauges, three straight flat ones and half a dozen carving knives.

Carving the love spoon

The finish of a lovespoon is very important. On average more than 1/3 of the time spent making a spoon is spent sanding, using three different grits of sandpaper. 

To learn more about how to carve a love spoon or an eating spoon for your breakfast then my spoon carving DVD gives you all the instruction that you will need.