LumberJocks Woodworking Forum banner

Project Information

Four of five years ago some knucklehead ran into one of the decorative Bradford pear trees by the entrance to our neighborhood. It knocked the tree over and our gardener bucked up the trunk and piled the wood at the side of the street. We don't have a wood-burning fireplace, but we do like to camp, so I hauled the wood home, split it and stacked it in the garage. We have burned some over the years, but there were still a dozen or so pieces I the wood pile. I have been carving spoons from cherry and birch. I like them, but wanted to try sawing out some blanks with my new Grizzly band saw and thought I'd give pear a try.

I have to tell you, fully dried pear is a lot tougher to carve than green birch. This stuff is really hard. I roughed out the spoon, but gave up on carving the bowl with my Flexcut spoon knife. Today I picked up some cheap little carving chisels at HD. After a half hour putting an edge on the spoon gouges I went back to work. Success!. I managed to pare out the bowl, the rasped the rest of the spoon into shape. I sanded it to 600 grit. This wood really feels silky, I followed a suggestion I read on another woodworking site. I heated the oven to 350 degrees, slathered the spoon with oil, then put it in the oven for three minutes and took it out. As the wood cools, it sucked the oil into the fibers better than it would by just soaking.

The result was better than I expected. It turns out pear is a very attractive wood. I might have to resaw some small boards and try making a box or two.

Have any of you tried wood-pile pear before?

Gallery

Comments

· Registered
Joined
·
3 Posts
That's a great spoon. Love seeing recycled wood getting a new life. Nice project
 

· Registered
Joined
·
8 Posts
Wooden utensils are cool ,l like what you've done. Great job
 

· Registered
Joined
·
429 Posts
Never tried carving Pear before but I love saving wood from the log-pile and
making it into something useful.
Cool spoon. I love the curvy sweep of it.
 

· Registered
Joined
·
3 Posts
Love that shape! Very nice looking spoon!
 

· Registered
Joined
·
259 Posts
Like wooden spoons and yours is beautiful, has a nice shape and makes a great serving spoon. Great job!
 

· Registered
Joined
·
7 Posts
Nice job! I've been using cherry to carve spoons thus far, since the wood is dry I've had better results using a gouge and mallet to carve the bowel. Discovered that the Mora hook knife I ordered and tried is better suited for green wood. A spoke shave makes quick work of shaping the outside of the bowl and carving the handle, followed by a rasp. I use a Grizzly drum (80g) and flap (120g) sander to clean up up the tool marks. For finish sanding I've been experimenting with a Klingspor sanding mop on the drill press up to 220g and then 320g by hand.

I agree that heating the spoon is the way to go to finish, I've had great results. I've tried olive & hemp so far, but picked up some coconut oil and beeswax to try next. The hemp oil came out great! Will need to experiment with the beeswax, not sure if I'll have better results buffing with beeswax after heat treating with oil or mix the oil and wax ahead of time and add them as one prior to heating the spoon.
 

· Registered
Joined
·
4,124 Posts
Turned out nice! Maybe if you can compare dried birch for comparison?
 
Top