Spoons

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monophoto

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Last month, I saw some turned spoons at a show in Northville, NY, and decided to see if I could create something similar.

The basic design is a two-axis turning - starting out as a spindle with a 'bump', and then remounted in a donut chuck to hollow the bump. Mike Peace has a great video in which he demonstrates how to make these, and also shows how to make the donut chuck. Mike's spoons are basically coffee scoops with a 1.5" body, but you can rescale the design either up or design.

Mine are made from maple and have a 1" body. The handles are about 5" long - the only restriction is that the handle can't be longer than the swing of your lathe (unless you can shift or twist the headstock to avoid swing limitations).

I prefer the design with the thin handle. The spoon with the heavy handle was made from a blank with a bark inclusion that I had reinforced with CA, but I wasn't confident that the patch would be strong enough to make a thin handle.

Don't know how practical these are, but they are fun to make.
 

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MDWine

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While I am unable to see this video from work, I watched a vid where the maker went through several steps to ensure that the "bowl" was of a certain volume to measure coffee "accurately"... interesting.

These are great, and maple is a great choice. (a local supplier has maple with curl that is 6 or 7 stripes per inch!!!) That would be cool!

Nice work!
 

monophoto

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A few additional thoughts -

1. Mike used four bolts to attach the front of his donut chuck. I designed my for a 1" diameter spoon bowl (with a 7/8" hole in the front) and decided that I only three bolts. Seems to work just fine. Also, mine is threaded to screw directly onto my lathe spindle and not require a scroll chuck.

2. Mike shows some sanding tools, and my experience leads me to believe that they are a good idea if you are going to be making a number of spoons. Trying to sand inside a small spoon bowl by holding sandpaper with the tip of your finger is tedious.

3. Also, if you are going to be making a number of these, it might be worth the effort to make a tool for hollowing out the bowl. I used a 1/4" spindle gouge and a shop-made 'skewchee gouge'-type tool. Perhaps something with a 6mm round carbide cutter - - -
 

monophoto

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The video that discusses precision dimensioning was by Brian Havens. He uses a split-turning approach that produces two spoons at a time, and uses a calibrated lump of Play-Doh to precisely dimension the interior of the bowl. Very clever.

A few years ago, my son bought himself a coffee grinder that came with a scoop that supposedly held 12 grams of beans. I made a calibrated wooden scoop to replace the original plastic scoop. Using a small electronic scale, I did a tare weighing of an empty 35mm film canister, and then repeated that process with the canister full of coffee beans. Then, I calculated the fraction of the canister that would hold 12 grams of beans (a simple ratio), and finally turned the scoop to have the internal dimensions of that fractional canister.

That's not a perfect calibration because it assumes that coffee beans have a uniform size and weight - which is something that we could certainly ponder at length on a day when its too cold to go outside (like today). But for grinding enough beans for a cup of coffee it's close enough.
 
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