Additional Tips for Turning Spoons
I've been turning some spoons on the lathe recently and worked out some details that I wanted to share.
If you have any further tips, please send them in and I'll add them to this page!
Deciding on size and creating a template
As I went to turn a spoon, I realized that I didn't have a final picture in my mind so I decided that I would base my spoon off one that my wife uses regularly. Since I planned to make more than one of them, I decided that a template would make sense.
I took the spoon and put it onto a piece of cardboard. You could use most anything handy including paper, hardboard or plastic.
I traced a line around the spoon, being a little generous. Fine detail is not critical here!
As I went to cut out the template, I made 2 "ah-ha's", first that I should make the width of the spoon handle the same size as the wood. This would give me a square piece of stock to hold in my scroll chuck. Using square wood is much safer than using out of square wood!!
Secondly, I decided that I should extend the bowl of the spoon so that my live center point did not stick into the spoon bowl.
You'll see these two changes in the next picture.
Layout
I found a nice piece of cherry lumber (3/4" stock) and by using my template was able to tell that I could get 2 spoons from the one piece of stock. I used a magic market pen to draw around the template so I could easily see it while cutting out the shape on the bandsaw.
You can see in the picture where I added to the spoon bowl and the some extra length and width to the handle.
Headstock Chucking
Here is my piece of cherry stock in my Talon chuck. The spigot jaws are holding all four sides of the wood tightly. This is the benefit of the square stock.
Tailstock Holding
I've found the center of the stock using the "connect the corners" method and used an awl to create an inital dimple for my live center.
Now, I'm ready to turn!!
Final Product
Here's a picture of the spoon turned in this exercise.
Of course, the bowl was carved...
