Thread: Kitchen Tool Project

There's nothing like cooking with a nice hand carved spoon! They look like they would be delightful to use!

Love the idea of a brand on the head of a nail. How did you make it?

My poor work bench is freckled with bolt holes for power tools and tie-down bolts.
I drew the design (BACKWARDS!!!) on the nail head with a skinny felt marker and dropped the nail ($ 0.50 each) through a bench hole. Sat down with a Dremel and some cut-off wheels. Cut down the perimeter then the detail. Took eight cutoff wheels. Same dust control that you have seen me use for shaping abalone shell.
Explains why I don't have a dedicated DC system tied to the drill press.
Need some test wood to check heating. Propane bottle torch.

I like these RV, they have a very streamlined unique look to them, I think they will sell well for you. The branding idea will certainly save a bit of time and add a touch of individuality. Well done.

Thanks Rob. I started by making a variety of spoon shapes and handed them out to people who do a lot of cooking, professionally, for charity and so on. Everybody wanted the fat sticks not the paddle spoons. The slim little bowl part is considered as a thumb notch!
I can buy very good birch for next to nothing. $3.00 gets cut as 15 stick blanks.
Maybe 1/10 has ugly twisted grain = too hard to work but I have ideas for those rejects.
Everyone said also that $10 - $12 would be a reasonable price. Takes me a bit more than an hour of ugly, cold dark winter weather to make one from start to finish.
Hand carved here in McBride from locally milled, local birch. Oven baked olive oil finish. Branded RV.
We shall see.

Great product. Great tools.

Thanks Len.
The Samona spokeshaves were $15 each! Far, far better steel than the $50 Stanley #64 that I started with. What a sour lemon that was.
In the last pic, you can see a few of the "experiments" = 2 spaghetti forks and a Mojito (drink) masher = one end for gutting 1/2 a lemon and the other serrated for mashing the lemon with mint leaves.
Think I'll make 6-8 more spag forks and see how they go.

I came looking from another thread. Looks like a great result and being able to get a buck for them even better. At least they are not on the shelf gathering dust.

Thanks Christos:
Two things by way of update:
1. In the past 7-8 months, I have not been able to wash the baked-oil finish off the spoon & fork that I've kept for my own (almost daily) use. One tine broke off a fork during the carving process so I carved it down and kept it. Better than the 4-tine forks.
2. Sales have picked up with Christmas on the cusp. Good stocking stuffers. I have not been able to get home for a couple of weeks, maybe between Christmas & New Years. More snow on the way then we get rain on that. Driving nightmare on a mountain highway. 4X4 can't save your butt.

All together, I think I will be close to my goal of finishing 100 of them for sale. Enough to pay my space rental in 2 stores. I'm bored to tears making them. Spokeshaves are really fun to use but even that is wearing thin.
Sea Turtle and Frog Dish WIPs to carve on in my spare time, these days. I'm a post-op care-giver.

You all take care and enjoy the festive season. I'll dream of you on the beach.

Seasons greetings Robson, I have been doing some googling this afternoon looking for more info on your baked olive oil finish. Not a lot out there!

Wondering if you would feel comfortable sharing the process?

Sure thing. I can't recall how/where I learned of this. The simple physics and logic are appealing to me. Plus, the process is fast and, in my own kitchen experience, very durable.

Preheat your kitchen oven to 350F. 300 works OK so in the range of 300 - 350F
Place a cake cooling rack over a sheet pan.
On that rack, slop up/slather the wood objects with olive oil.
Into the oven for not more than 3 minutes, by the clock.

Believe this: any longer and your wooden materials will start to cook like fries.

Out of the oven, I expect you to see the end grain foaming/frothing/bubbling
as the hot air out-gasses from the wood. Then as it cools, the olive oil is sucked into the wood behind the contracting, cooling wood air.

1. the penetration is far greater than any room temperature finish.
2. any food safe oil will be fine.
3. the olive oil can't oxidize/turn rancid as it is NOT exposed to atmosphere.
4. to move the oil, the wood needs to be reheated to 300+ for air expansion.
5. Hot soup (and expanding wood air) will blow off any RT finish, sucking soup into your wood.

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

5. Hot soup (and expanding wood air) will blow off any RT finish, sucking soup into your wood.

Forgive a little frenchie, "RT finish", wich means...?

Thanks RV, I will give it a go over the next little while!



Copeau I think rt finish stands for room temperature finish

Thanks, MrPete. Yes, RT means room temperature. A finish applied at 21C will be pushed out
in the circumstances of boiling water/soup at 100C. Now wet with soup or water, that will get sucked
into the spoon wood as it cools. This explains why so many old wooden spoons are discolored.

I suppose that I could do this at RT if I had a substantial chamber to go with my vacuum pump.
In the meantime, the oven method for kitchen tools appears easiest.

There's often a little puddle of excess oil in the spoon bowls.
I wipe that out with paper towel when everything has cooled
off.

Thanks !