Back In The Saddle Again!

Greetings and Salutations! Hope everyone had a fine Christmas and is looking forward to the New Year.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I've been busy on a new lovespoon. This one I'm calling Cranes & Cross, for obvious reasons. It's made of a nominal 3"x1"x12" poplar board.

It doesn't come out in the photos very well, but there is a stripe of brownish-green running through the right hand side of the spoon. That's the reason the eye and wing of the right-hand crane stand out more than the left.

I'm very fond of the pairs concept in lovespoon design, especially cranes as they mate for life. After all, isn't that what it's all about? I'm also fond, as I'm sure some of you have noticed, of the two-hearts-merged-into-one bowl design.

The knot is called Fae's Eternal Promise. I have modified it a bit to accentuate the heart shape.

This spoon I did a little differently in that I only used the hand saw to rip the handle to the depth I wanted it. I used a drill to start the piercings. The rest of the shaping and finishing was done with knives. It is an original design, and took me about 10-12 hours over four days.

You might note the feet on the cranes. That wasn't an intentional design element. While doing the leg on the left-hand crane I got a little carried away with wood removal. You know how it is when the wood just seems to be flying off the edge of your knife. Luckily I noticed it before I chewed all the way through the leg. So I had to adapt the leg of the other crane to match. Ah, design adjustments! I love 'em!

This wasn't the best piece of poplar that I've ever carved. It had a tendency to split out. When I was drilling the starts to the piercings around the cross a chunk about an eighth-of-an-inch thick split out directly across the left hand arm of the cross. That wasn't so terrible since I was going to relieve the cross anyway to put it behind the cranes.

You can see some striations on the top of the bowl, and could be forgiven for thinking it showed a split-out. But that part of the bowl is as fair and smooth as can be. It has to be something to do with that greenish-brown stripe, through nothing like that has happened before.

And here's what the back of the spoon looks like. I paid a little more attention this time to the guzunders and the guzovers.

So there you have it.

Until next time, when I hope to have more in-progress photos, let the chips fly!