Thread: Most appropriate riffler rasp for spoon carving

It kind of depends on the task you're wanting to perform on the spoon.

For shaping the bottom of the bowl where it's convex, I would suggest an 8" modeller's rasp from Liogier with an 11 or 12 grain stitch. This will have both a flat and curved side and is great for general use on a spoon.

For decorative carving you're kind of on your own, because it will depend on what kind of design you want to create.

For the inside of the bowl you may consider a Liogier No 1 Riffler with the Spoon/Culliere end. This has a limited radius of curvature, however, and probably won't work very well for a deep bowl. FWIW I tried to find a riffler for my girlfriend because she was hating having to sand the inside of the bowl so much and I came up emptyhanded. No one is really making anything that curved. I even tried to get Liogier to make a custom riffler but the language barrier was just a bit much to get that kind of technical communication across.

So a bit more info on which operations you're trying to perform would help with answers, but the long story short may end up being: You may need a couple.

Cheers,
Luke

Hi Luke,

For me it came into it's own when I was using it on the outside of the bowl of the spoon to tidy up after my (beginners) knife work, and also where the bowl meets the handle, so wouldn't need to be highly curved. I think unfortunately at this time a Liogier is going to be out of my price bracket, as they seem to be $100+ a pop from what I can tell . I was looking at the Corradi as they are considerably cheaper, but and are still as I understand pretty good for a beginner.

For that I would definitely consider a rasp with a flat side and a rounded side in the 8" or 6" size with a medium-fine grit. A half round Flat Bastard file may be a (much) cheaper option.

Ok, thanks for the advice Luke