Hand carved Cherry bowl

A kind local arborist felled a Cherry tree nearby and he dropped of a piece for me to carve. Cherry is a beautiful wood but can be frustrating to work because of its tendancy to split. This piece behaved well and allowed me to carve a bowl from it.

I started with an adze to remove a lot of wood and then I switched knives for the shaping, finished with sanding and then oiling.

Hand carved canoe cups - cherry

I have carved these two canoe cups in the style that harks back to the days of the voyageurs. The voyageurs were the men that paddled large canoes carrying beaver pelts to trading posts in what is now Canada. The voyageur wore a sash around his waist and the leather strap on the canoe cup was wound around the sash so that the drinking cup was always available.

The toggle is a stylised canoe.

I can find surprisingly little information on the style, sizing and history of the canoe cup and would appreciate any information that you may have.

A new Cherry kusa.

I have some new green cherry logs which are ideal for carving, a rummage through the logs produced a log I could use for a medium sized kusa. I made the most of the indian summer we were having and worked under an oak tree in my garden, I was also sheltered by a willow tree and felt well away from noise and distractions.

The log split easily with the froe and I started work. I marked out a rough shape with a pencil then with axe and spoon knife I started carving.

When the light started to go I placed of the wood chips in a bag and then added the part carved kuksa. next morning more carving and then some sanding produced the finished kusa.

Sadly my camera died so I only have a few images.

I had some small pieces of wood in the shed ideally suited for making spreaders. These spreaders were traditionally used for spreading butterand jam etc. They are approx 18cm long  with the handles varying in thickness.

The wood was split and shaped with an axe, then sat under a tree in the sun a wood carving knife was used to finish shaping the spreaders. Then the finishing was done by sanding and coating in a food safe oil.

The next few are made from cherry and have wonderful colouring, the log was twisted and I left the twist in the spreader and it is still looks great and is comfortable to use.

The next two are carved from apple, the wood was twisted, gnarly and tough to carve but came out well and with a lovely colouring.

Lastly a carved oak spreader

 

Kuksa from Cherry wood.

I have been looking at kuksa's, Swedish traditional drinking cups, many of these hand made kuksa's are very beautiful, inspired I carved my first Kuksa from Cherry wood.The Kusa is quite small the bowl being only four inches on the long side, the whole Kuksa is seven inches long.

The wood was a joy to carve with the colours suited to the Kuksa, the lines of the Kuksa were easily found in the wood. Here is the Kusa before being oiled.

The wood was first reduced and rough shaped by hand axe, then I worked with two wonderful carving tools from Dorset Woodland Blades, the blades are easy to sharpen to very, very sharp allowing me to concentrate on the carving.

Spoon from Cherry

I was lucky to be invited to a greenwood working weekend at a private wood, the wood is owned by people who make high quality chairs from greenwood. There was a mix of experienced people at the weekend with a variety of skills and I hoped to learn some of their basic techniques.

I was kindly given some very fresh Cherry and I started work on a large, 15 inch, spoon. Cherry is a lovely wood to work with with beautiful colouring. I started on the log I was given by splitting lengthways and one half was axed into a rough spoon shape.

A Mora bushcraft knife was used to refine the shape and a spoon knife was used to hollow the bowl. Finally a light sanding finished the spoon.

I did learn an amazing amount from the greenwood workers and made some new friends at the same time, I will be back for more.