Carving a wooden spoon Pt3

Here's how the Sycamore spoon/ladle turned out. I think I took these pictures after an initial 3 or 4 day soaking in a bain marie that I have full of cold pressed linseed oil (aka flax seed oil). It takes quite a while for the oil to fully cure and the wood benefits greatly from subsequent soakings from time to time. I find that I can get a better tooled finish on some timbers if I do the final finishing cuts AFTER a soaking in oil. I guess this is due to fibres consolidating and the lubricating action of the oil.

The delicate finishing cuts may incorporate some of the cuts described in previous posts but in the most part , I use the 'thumb push' stroke. As illustrated below , the thumb of the hand not holding the knife handle either pushes the blade through the wood, removing small shavings; or , the thumb acts as a fixed fulcrum point, and the knife hand performs a sweep to remove the shaving.

Here are some spoons I recently made as gifts for folk. I've experimented with a bit of ornamentation 'Sundqvist style' to make them bespoke. Most of the top set are in Rhododendron, and the bottom one is in Whitebeam. I use instant coffee to fill the engraving cuts.