Seven kuksa

I have be working on carving different styles of kuksa, the first kuksa shows a tooled finish and is not oiled, the others are sanded for smoothness and oiled with food grade linseed oil. Fellow carvers always prefer the tooled finish but I am buyers seem to prefer the sanded finish. I would be very interested to receive comments...

Small kuksa

I have some fresh birch and decided to carve a small kuksa, just right for drinking coffee. 

Birch is the traditional wood for carving kuksas and will eventually turn a warm shade of gold.

Tools, axe and knives.

 

I had a few leftover scrap pieces of wood to use so I carved some spreaders and spoons. Tools used were axe and knives.

Birch spoon

Cherry spoon as ever the grain of cherry had wonderful colouring.

Cherry spreader

Birch spreader

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

 

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.