Well all of my original spoons 12 years ago were sanded and i was really pleased with them at the time, when i see them at my parents house i also quite like the naive Aesthetic they have. I have wondered if you can make an item functional what is the point in chasing down different designs and trying to perfect them? i think the answer is some of us are just chasers and i think beautiful spoons are a good a thing to chase as anything else. Anyway this spoon is interesting for a couple of reasons, firstly it has been made from a bent branch you may be able to notice the elongated rings in the bowl, if the bend in the branch perfectly follows the curve of the bowl then you get straight grain and no rings at all, in my experience it's rare to find a perfect match, and when you force it it definitely looks forced to me (i don't think that this is a bad thing). But i think it is not neccessary, certainly using a bend even like i have above will greatly increase the strength of the spoon not least because of the ripple in the grain that interlocks and also looks pretty.
So i've cocked up and left my old spoon knife in London, and all i have now are my new (lovely) Spoon Knives, i am still very excited about these, and i'm looking forward to exploring the shapes of bowls they will make, i am finding that i can finish the bowl of a spoon in about half the time it was taking before with a lovely uniform finish.
So you may ask why i have sanded the inside of this spoon. Well because the spoon knife is symmetrical it has quite a limited size bowl it can make. When you carve with the grain (which i find faster) you need to maintain enough shallowness to the bowl so that you can tidy up the middle across the grain. I'll forgive myself because this type of knife is very new to me (if you know anyone that uses one like it please get in contact), but i was left with a few fine hairs in the bottom of the bowl and had run out of space to change it. Having recently picked up some old stuff from storage i found some micro mesh that i used to polish my wooden jewelry with, this starts with 1500 grit and secveral grades up to 12000, i did it all in just over 5 minutes, under a warm running tap (hot water from a tap is a luxury i adore), the water lubricates the very fine abrasive as well as keeping the grain from flattening, i let it dry and gave it a quick rub with the 12000 again. As i hope you can see from the photo it leaves a very smooth finish which you can see you can actually see your face in. I used this spoon to eat with last night, and was nervous that i would prefer it to the carved finish i leave on my spoons. Luckily i did not like it at all, and shall not be sanding any more spoons. Disappointingly all my housemates liked it because they think it looked nicer, don't know what to do about that : (
You bring up a good point Barn, I wonder how many folks think a sanded spoon is a better spoon.
ReplyDeleteI have found this, sanding = better. IMHO this is not the case, I now do not offer a sanded option. This is much easier and they have nothing to compare it with.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly I use to offer my small balancing dragonflies with a sanded or cut finish. People mostly seamed to go for the sanded finish. Sanding does not take as long but hurts my hands and fingers even when using powered sanding machinery. I much rather take a bit longer, earn a bit less and have a far more pleasant experience making. I hate sanding, so if you want a sanded finish you will have to pay more.
I'm with Sean on this. Charge more for a sanded finish! My biggest carving influence was Scandinavian Flat Plane carving. Practitioners of this art call sandpaper "The Devil's Paper"!
ReplyDeleteSanding is a pain.
Bob
Hilarious Sean! i had to look up IMHO, i certainly won't be offering sanded spoons, i got into green woodwork in part because of the damgage sanding wooden jewelry was doing to my lungs, i was living in a bedsit with a fretsaw and a dremel in the corner of the room.
ReplyDeleteOther things that impress people but not me goes along the lines of:
"oh how thin it is, so delicate, look you can see the light through it" (actually that was a mistake if you can see light through it when it's dry then i think it's too thin (not if it's been oiled))
"oh that's a nice heavy dense wood"
(actually the wood is still wet and will have half the weight in a couple of days in your house)
"oh that's a lovely dark wood"
(it wasn't originally but it got so dirty when i was making it i had to stain it)
"Oh lovely fancy carvings"
(no that took no skill and about 2 min and it's doubled the price)
I love the tone of resentment in my voice, actually love these people too. Something that does make me happy is that when i have made a spoon that i'm very proud of it will sell almost immediately so i think people do on the whole have good taste, maybe it's like trying to persuade an organic carrot is nicer than a tesco one even though compared to a tesco one it appears mishapen?