Cooking and eating

Since getting my pole lathe working I have been making some wooden bowls for my kitchen. As much as I do like my porcelain bowls, being that I can stick them in the microwave and cook stuff instantly, I find it detracts from the joy off eating from my own homemade wooden bowls. My breakfast bowl is nice to eat from as it has aged nicely and everyday I use it, it brings back memories of making it and the journey it has taken. So having made some wooden bowls I wanted to make some pieces to cook with.

To that end I have made a nice little trough and serving spoon out of some rippled willow. Was an absolute bugger to carve due to the rippling wanting to break off and do its own thing. But they came out rather nice after a little perseverance and oiling. The trough will be a wonderful addition to serve food or to make dough in for bread as it follows the traditional pattern which is somehow find very pleasing. Whether it is its symmetry or its functionality I don't know but it just seems so nice.

Now too test them out and see how they age after use.

Some Carved Bowls And a New Tool

having done a bowl carving course a couple of months ago I have finally got the tools (and time) to have ago at carving some bowl and troughs. the first ones where done fort paull back in august where i was able to carve two bowls out of some willow. this was the first time i had chance to test out a hook tool i had made which worked well cutting across the grain of the wood but blunted cutting along the grain, and after sharpening 4 times i came to the conclusion that the tool had not been hardened enough. But the bowls turned out great!!! and i was able to give one of them to a friend who works at skidby mill.

I was able to re-harden the hook and get it too work later on, but not bad for a piece of car spring i got for free.

The start: two car springs 

unwinding in the forge

Left: forged blade

Right: grind put on the blade

heating up to curl the blade with a hammer

sadly i forgot to take photos after this point as its very fast work and i need full concentration to get it right. I have to say making ones own tools is a great experience and it gives a great feel for the craft at hand. still have another hook to make so when i get chance will have ago.

Bowl Carving Course

Last week I attended a bowl carving course with robin wood, and I have to say that was an eye opener to the skills needed to carve bowls.

I turned up on the wednesday and pitched my tent and spent first couple hours sharpening my axe since I had a couple hours to kill. We started by selecting and splitting some willow into sizeable pieces for the bowl mate and removing the bark so we could draw the design.

The first tool we had to use was an adze which was to carve out the inside of the bowl and was actually a lot easier to use than I thought. first came the big roughing cuts to remove as much mass as quickly as possible and then came the more gentle smoothing cuts. After getting to grips with the adze the results showed

After the the adze came the the gouges and hook tools to smooth off all the cuts and make it nice.

Then came the axe to remove the waste wood to give shape to the ends.

and finally finishing of the outside with a push knife and a spokeshave to give its final shape. The push knife was a fun tool, like a drawknife but the opposite.  The finished bowl is at the bottom.

hoping to make a few more some time soon :-)