Splitting three spoon blanks

Some limbs/logs are too thick for 2 spoon blanks, and too thin for 4. For oak furniture, I was taught to usually split in halves. But sometimes you can get three out if things go well. I first saw splitting in thirds done by Robin Wood and Jarrod Dahl at North House Folk School in 2014. Here they used 3 axes struck with a wooden club to bust out bowl turning blanks. Robin tells me that this is how all the bowls from the Mary Rose were oriented in the log. He’s on the right, Jarrod next. 2nd from the left is Roger Abrahamson. http://www.rogerabrahamson.com/index.html

Later, Deneb Puchalski showed me his take on it during a spoon class he & I did at Lie-Nielsen. Here’s a grey birch bolt, about 5″ in diameter, that I split in thirds. This small stuff you just need one hatchet, no helpers. I started by drawing a peace sign, or Mercedes Benz insignia on the end grain. Or forget that stuff, and drawer three lines from the pith out to the bark, dividing the piece into thirds.

To start the split, take a hatchet and put its toe right at the pith. I tilt the hatchet so only its toe is hitting the wood. The last thing I want is this split to go past the pith in the other direction. Give it a knock with a wooden club.

Not too hard, I just want to start the split.

Then take the hatchet out, turn the piece and do the same for the other two radial lines.

Keep going around and around, and each time whack it a bit harder…and the splits will begin to develop.

 

At a certain point, you just are committed and drive the hatchet all the way. It usually does this – knocks one third out from the other two.

What fun!

Then take one of your chunky thirds and knock the pith off and go ahead and carve your spoon from it. And the other two…

Red tail hawk from today.

 

Here there & everywhere

Back to the blog now. April has been a whirlwind month for me…and as I look back I see only 2 blog posts all month. When I counted up the final tally, I was out of the house & shop for 15 days out of the month. On top of that was packing and preparation for the various gigs, and unpacking & trying to sort out what’s what. I’m almost all set up again now. And it’s almost May.

I had posted about the barred owl at Roy Underhill’s place, but there was woodworking going on too. Two 3-day spoon carving classes. Lots of spoons underway; something like 18-20 students off & running. Or hewing, I guess.

The trip to Roy’s is a 2-day drive, so that was 10 days away. I came home, unpacked, put tools away and switched gears to prep for a demonstration & slide talk to the Timber Framers’ Guild at their meeting in Portsmouth, NH. https://www.tfguild.org/ Easy, this one was a up & back in one-day affair, but took time to prep. I shot no photos, because I was doing the slide-show bit, then I worked on the wainscot chair I have underway, I think. I honestly forget. It was a very nice crowd, friendly people who chop large mortise & tenons…

Back from that, un-pack, and dive right into prepping for Fine Woodworking Live in Southbridge, Massachusetts.  http://www.finewoodworkinglive.com/ 

A one-day spoon carving class, followed by Friday night-Sunday afternoon conference. Hotel woodworking! I had little assigned to me there, a slide talk on Saturday morning, then loafing around hob-nobbing with woodsy types. They got me an assistant to help teach the spoon carving class – Dave Fisher! I wound him up & stood back & watched.

It was great to be able to see a lot of the event, at Greenwood Fest I never get to see the presentations for more than 10-15 minutes at a stretch, so I felt like I got away with something at this event. I didn’t take photos beyond Dave’s demo on bowl-carving. If for some reason you’ve missed Dave’s work thus far, go: https://davidffisherblog.wordpress.com/ 

 

As you see, it truly is hotel-woodworking. Wall-to-wall carpeting, cameras projecting onto screens. It all works out very well, but it’s hard to shoot coherent photos. So these were all I got.

I watched Mary May carve a ball & claw foot, she’s always great to see. I’ve known Mary and her work for several years now, but never really get to see her presentations from beginning to end. https://www.marymaycarving.com/carvingschool/  and her Instagram site is here: https://www.instagram.com/marymaywoodcarving/ 

Then we piled into see a very clear demo from Pete Galbert on turning. I’ve done almost no turning for 3 years so it was very helpful to get a breakdown on his approach. I have a lot of lathe-work coming up, so I went and bought Pete’s new video from Lost Art Press to help me get my turning muscles back. https://lostartpress.com/collections/dvds/products/galbert-turning 

https://www.instagram.com/petergalbert/

It was really a great time. The Fine Woodworking crew worked long and hard to put on this event, I highly recommend it. I’m sure you’ll get wind of it when they announce it for next year.

 

Carving the next wainscot chair stile

I’ve got my joinery book just about finished, I have a few things to photograph, and a couple of paragraphs to write. This carving pattern came after I was done writing, so it goes here instead of in the book. It’s a rear stile for a wainscot chair, 3″ wide.

After striking margins and a centerline, I struck the outline of the diamond shape with a broad chisel & mallet.

The inner part of that design is outlined again with the chisel.

These half-circle bits get 2 strikes of this deeply curved gouge. These are stuck to the margin…

Next, I took a large #5 Swiss-made gouge and used it to outline the large rosette. These photos are too close to see, but just about all of this is mallet work.

After outline, then I use the same tool to relieve the bits right around the rosette. Then a smaller #5 to finish removing background.

Inside the rosette, a small circle right in the middle, defined with 3 strikes of a small curved gouge.

Then remove a chip right up against that incised outline to begin hollowing the shape.

Then I can step back and use a large tool to remove more of that hollowing. By cutting the bit right near the center first, I’ve decreased the chances of knocking the middle out with this gouge. 

Once that rosette is hollowed, I use a very narrow gouge to define the outline of the petals.

Then remove a chip behind the 2 cuts that form the intersection of 2 petals.

Then a straight chisel to connect the parts, to define the edges of the petals.

A narrower chisel makes a straight line through the petal, followed by a punch (a fine nailset in this case) at the tip. 

Here’s a short (amateur) video done with the ipad, warts & all. It shows me carving the diamond/lozenge part:

Barred owl

I just got back from a 10-day trip to Roy Underhill’s Woodwright’s School in Pittsboro, N.C. Four of those days were driving, (Blue Ridge Mountains along rte 29 in Virginia above) so 6 days down there working. We had 2 spoon-carving classes of 3 days each – so 20 new spoon carvers unleashed on the world.

When I travel, I don’t access my email. This is good for me, but hard for those trying to get hold of me. So now I’m sifting through what’s on my desk and sorting some photos. Meanwhile, here’s the barred owl (Strix varia) from Roy’s place.

The setting – the dam on the creek…the owl is in this shot, on the curved ash tree below the dam. I didn’t see it at the time.

Here’s an owl more visible, out in the open. We call it “he” but it might be the pair takes turns feeding. Not sure…

 

Late afternoon, early evening – with raking light

This was going to be a great shot. I forget if it was lunch time or breakfast…but I left my camera in the shop. By the time I went & got it the light changed and the bird was in shadows…

My best flight shot (of maybe 4 shots) – with food in its bill. I assume off to the nest with this…

When it’s against the bark like this, it’s easy to miss. See the overall shots above, that’s where the bird is in there.

read more about barred owls on Cornell’s website: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Barred_Owl/overview