Teaching people how to carve spoons is always a pleasure but it’s great to be asked by an experienced carver to extend their skills.
Gareth has been carving for a few years now and teaching too. We talked at Sizergh Greenwood Fair about spooncarving and he asked there about some specific spoon carving questions which he wanted help with before booking a day of individual tuition with me.
I love teaching spoon carving to beginners but it’s even more exciting to teach someone with more experience and specific queries, it’s so great to be able to push someones skills and challenge my own carving and teaching.
I brought along a ‘gallery’ of spoons for inspiration but we quickly got carving. To start with Gareth wanted to watch me shape a blank using the axe and we covered how to form the intitial shape including the crank between the bowl and handle and using an adze to start hollowing the bowl. After that Gareth axed his own blank and we continued through the process of carving together. This highlighted other issues areas where either Gareth had a specific issue or I thought it was worth pointing out tips and ideas. This kind of atmosphere is great for exploring design and technical issues in carving so it’s also interesting as well for me as a greenwood carving teacher.
After dinner we spent some time on sharpening carving knive, hook knives and axes with Japanese waterstones. Looking at the edge through an eyeglass and understanding the process makes sharpening a completely new experience and is the foundation for great spoon carving. Gareth certainly seemed to discover new levels of understanding and sharpness for his knives.
Gareth made a great spoon, achieved a lot of learning and we had a terrific day together. It was only a shame that I was so busy teaching that I didn’t get my own spoon finished but that can be a treat for another day.
On Saturday a hardy group put on their waterproofs and faced the Cumbrian rain including Ken and Joyce who were on a round the world trip from their home in Australia. Ken told me they’d booked their tickets and then booked the Learn to Mow course as the second item and were enjoying the cooler weather in the UK! We did get a bit damp but it was mostly just heavy showers and didn’t get in the way of some great mowing in the post-haymaking grass.
Then on Sunday, contrary to the forecast, the sun came out for a new group of scythe beginners. They carried on the mowing and the two groups got around three-quarters of the orchard cut. They could see how close they were to completing the job and I had to drag them away from it so we could go and do some peening. When was the last time you had to drag someone away from cutting grass with a strimmer?
The final part of the weekend was peening the scythes with a discussion of techniques followed by some practise. Women are often put off by the thought of this so I was especially happy that Basia and Jane not only got the hang of it but enjoyed hammering as much as the blokes!
Day two started with peening and became a very in-depth discussion of how to shape the edge of the scythe, the various methods including peening jig and freehand peening using an anvil as well as digressions into scythe manufacture, blade designs and snath making. I really enjoyed having such and interested group to talk through the principles and ideas. Following the theory we had time for a practical peening workshop, each person either peening their own scythe or one of my practise blades. To finish off, we spent a couple of hours mowing a tricky patch of ground includng slopes, ditches, docks and obstacles to test the groups new skills to the full.
“I am looking for any pictures of the course at Parham House. Any shot of Neville Neal there would be wonderful.
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