Part 2-Hand carving a spoon

Hi Everyone,
Ok, I'm back.

I love to carve wood and I began carving as a child. But as I've grown older, I've developed some arthritis in my hands and hand carving has become just too painful to do anymore. I really miss carving and I've been searching for a way to carve without too much pain.

I received a request for a set of hand carved spoons last summer and I attempted to make the spoons using a whittling knife and a set of hook knives. It didn't work out and my hands hurt for months afterwards.

Fast forward to last week: I was looking at a catalogue that I get ever once in a while that consists of hand carving tools and in the catalogue was a selection of draw knives. These are knife blades, typically 5 - 11 inches in length with a handle on both ends instead of on only one end of the blade and I decided that carving with both hands at the same time might be the way to carve something:

 So I went and purchased a 5 inch carving knife this morning and a block of basswood and after the bowl turning this morning I roughed out a spoon blank on the bandsaw and sat down and proceeded to carve away:

Here is a photo of how a drawknife is used. These types of carving knives are used to shape the exterior of an object:

Here is the blank after about 1 hour of carving:

This is the block about an hour later:

And of course there are always shavings to deal with:

Well, my hands aren't hurting at all. Very good.

Now tomorrow, we have the big problem to deal with: hollowing out the bowl of the spoon. That will have to be done with a hook knife, which is a knife with a single handle and that's going to be more difficult.

As it's a holiday weekend in the US, I'll just be taking it easy this weekend but I probably will be working on the spoon and if I do, I'll post more photos.

Let's all take some time off this weekend and remember all the people who have served our country.

VW