Maple burr kuksa

Hi all

A friend kindly gave me a maple log which had a few burr's.

I removed the burr's

From the largest burr I carved a kuksa
The wood was difficult to carve with the grain changing direction a lot!

 

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.

A friend gave me a lump of willow so I thought I would use it to make a bowl.

Willow proved to be a strange wood to carve, water sprayed from it when it was hit with the axe and it scratches or dents when you just look at it.

The wood was also very light and felt weak so the bowl is a bit chunky :-)

I don't think that I will carve much willow but it was fun to sit in the woods and make the bowl :-)

The bowl is sixteen inches end to end.

Unupdate to the original post: The bowl is seasoning and the surface is getting tougher.

Something special - Staghorn sumach

Something special

A friend gave me a piece of very unusual wood, Rhus Typhina, otherwise known as Staghorn sumach. The colours and the patterning are fantastic. The spoon was carved to show the beauty of the wood. 

It was not easy to carve the wood as it was very easy to tear the wood fibres, also it was intended that there should be no symmetry in the carving so getting a balance was a challenge.

Two tone birch spoon

One of the joys of working with natural materials is the unexpected. In the precious two posts we can see how birch looks when carved. But although I made this spoon from birch it has a two tone colour.

The colour comes from a fungus invading the wood as it starts to rot, the good news is that once worked and dried the wood remains stable and the fungus causes no problems in the future.

The darker wood here is the fungal growth

The spoon was made with a short handle for strength.

Large Birch Kuksa

The traditional Kuksa is a style of drinking cup made by the Sami people of northern Scandinavia and is carved from Birch. 

This Kuksa is large and can hold just over a pint of liquid, I know people that use these when camping for food or drink. The two holed handle is very comfortable to hold.

Kuksa with spoon knife

Kuksa with blades used

The Bowl is 135mm x 125mm, overall length is 240mm, height is 65mm

Birch Qiaich

Birch Qiaich

I have a lot of local woodland albeit carved in to seperate sections or "reserves". In the woodland we have a lot of beautiful silver birch, I love the way that they glow in sunshine with darker trees supplying a contrasting backdrop. The wood is soft and easy to carve but a bit prone to tearing if knives are not sharp.

My local reserve are clearing their woodland of birch which means there is wood available.

The quaich is a tradtional Scottish drinking cup and was used for drinking whisky or brandy.

This little cup was a pleasure to carve and I will be making more.

Hornbeam spoon

Walking in my local woodland I see many Hornbeam trees which grow in tangled shapes or with long branches growing out to what seem unsupportable lengths. These are wonderfeul trees which give me much visual pleasure.

I had not attempted to carve Hornbeam because it is a very hardwood, traditionally used for canon ramrods, cogs, tool handles, chopping blocks and pulleys, in America it is often called Ironwood.

But having been offered some green hornbeam I decided to try something small, a spoon. Much to my surprise the wood was a joy to work and when finished the spoon is very smooth and comfortable to use.

Spoon knives courtesy of Dorset Woodland Blades.

 The spoon is 165mm long.

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.

First carved spoon

While walking the dog I acquired a branch from a birch tree that was being felled because it was unsafe and leaning over a road.

So the time had come to carve my own spoon. I roughed it out with an old hand axe. Then I started to carve, it soon looked so bad I almost gave up. But by lunch time I had finished carving... almost. The bowl is hard to carve with a normal knife, I asked a fellow canoeist what he used and he lent me a spoon knife and I soon had a spoon :-)

 the spoon is 9" long

Of course it looks less than great to me now but it was a huge amount of fun to make and I am hooked.