Making a Spoon with a Gouge and Spokeshave - A Video by Paul Sellers

Spoon shaping is an excellent project for beginner woodworkers, including children. If you can peel potatoes Paul says, you can shape spoons. The project also requires you to read the grain of the wood. You finish up with a spoon that is unique in shape, isn’t made from bamboo and hasn’t come out of China. Your beautiful spoon is fashioned from a piece of firewood, even an offcut from the drop saw.

To get the spoon into shape Paul uses his axe which is as sharp as his chisel and can be used very similar to a paring chisel. He then uses a paring chisel to remove the pit from the centre to give it a smoother surface. First, he chocked it so that it was parallel and fit and anchored into the vice. With both hands behind the chopping edge of the axe, this works perfectly to remove the excess.

Wood Carved Spoon Pattern

He can then take his spoon pattern, find the centre and trace around it to get the overall shape for the cut. The reason for the centre line is to make sure the bowl is centred in the spoon. To make the pattern, take a box and draw on the shape you want. The length can be whatever you want, any length of spoon works. Draw a half oval and then a parallel line to basically give you a spoon shape. Cut it out with a knife and your pattern is ready.

Paul then took the spoon blank, marked on to the other corner, folded and came inside with a quarter of an inch rim and cut it out. Paul has made permanent patterns using plastic sign material that’s a sixteenth of an inch thick. Made out of plastic, it will last forever. Using the smaller spoon pattern, he lays it out. Paul decides to leave the handle length longer for now and decide after where it should be cut off.

Next, Paul takes his pencil and eyeballs the middle of the spoon. Take a straight edge and draw the line down the middle. Using the fold of a piece of cardboard, mark the spoon, so you get a centre line. Paul thinks the next part is so wonderful that he developed it into a curriculum for working with his children. Spoon carving was one of the first projects he did with his young sons. He has five boys, and they all worked together with him carving spoons. It’s a good safe project to do with kids.

Shaping the Spoon

A cabinetmaker's mallet or hammer with a hard face and soft face is ideal for different aspects of woodworking. It works well as a general chisel hammer because it’s easy on the tools and has a great centre of percussion. When you strike, it delivers a good cutting edge. Make a mark across the middle of the spoon to give a reference. After making as many spoons as Paul has, you won’t need to do this step but starting out it’s a good idea.

About a third of the way in, start chiselling at an angle then turn around and come from the opposite end. Doing the same from the different side creates the eye of the spoon. Lift out the middle section, and it creates the second eye. Don’t go too far into the middle as it can split the wood underneath. Just roll into the cut to feel the grain. If there is a resistance of the grain, change direction or use a little more strength. Paul refines using upper body work. If the wood were green, it would just peel out. A woodland workout is using knives to do the shaping, but here Paul uses his body to anchor and carve the wood.

Right in the very bottom where the two aspects converge in the middle, go across the grain and pair across the fibres.

Shaping the Handle

After using a saw to cut off the excess and to get the shape of the handle, Paul moved on to one of his favourite tools, the spokeshave. He has bought them for his children and grandchildren. The spokeshave can replace a knife, so it’s great for kids to use.

He uses the spokeshave to refine the back of the spoon, so he ends up with a beautiful dome graceful shape. The spokeshave continues to take out all the saw marks, chisel marks and any unevenness.

Paul uses a flat bottom spokeshave and finds he rarely needs a round bottom spokeshave except for a very tight radius, maybe a less than six inches in diameter. For most of his work, the flat bottom works best.

About Paul Sellers

Paul Sellers A Lifestyle Woodworker is a popular blog with a YouTube channel that boasts more than 300,000 subscribers. The UK blogger is a woodworker and furniture maker with thousands of projects under his belt. This video has had more than 1.4 million views.

If you have any queries about the right product for your next framing project, don’t hesitate to contact us.